You are 27 or 28 right? It is very tough to live at that age. When nothing is sure. I have sympathy with you.
Haruki MurakamiRead
Someone who can search for something is happy. Searching gives a meaning to life. Nowadays it’s not so easy to find something you might be looking for. The most important thing, however, is the search itself, the way you take. It’s not so important where it leads. that’s why my characters are always looking for something, maybe only a cat, a sheep or a wife, but that is at least the beginning of a story.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The pursuit of what we seek is often more meaningful than the outcome.
Haruki Murakami emphasizes the intrinsic value of searching and the quest for meaning in life rather than focusing solely on the destination. This quote suggests that happiness can be found in the act of searching itself, whether it's for something tangible like a pet or an abstract concept like love, as the journey shapes our stories and experiences.
Themes
SearchingMeaningLifeJourneyHappiness
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about pursuing dreams.
More from Haruki Murakami
All quotes →They take the circuits out of people’s brains that make it possible for them to think for themselves. Their world is like the one that George Orwell depicted in his novel. I’m sure you realize that there are plenty of people who are looking for exactly that kind of brain death. It makes life a lot easier. You don’t have to think about difficult things, just shut up and do what your superiors tell you to do.
Haruki MurakamiRead
Memories and thoughts age, just as people do. But certain thoughts can never age, and certain memories can never fade.
Haruki MurakamiRead
I think you still love me, but we can’t escape the fact that I’m not enough for you. I knew this was going to happen. So I’m not blaming you for falling in love with another woman. I’m not angry, either. I should be, but I’m not. I just feel pain. A lot of pain. I thought I could imagine how much this would hurt, but I was wrong.
Haruki MurakamiRead
Everybody burns out in this world; amateur, pro, it doesn't matter, they all burn out, they all get hurt, the OK guys and the not-OK guys both. That's why everybody takes out a little insurance. I've got some too, here at the bottom of the heap. That way, you manage to survive if you burn out. If you're all by yourself and don't belong anywhere, you go down once, and you're out. Finished.
Haruki MurakamiRead
Life is so uncertain: you never know what could happen. One way to deal with that is to keep your pajamas washed.
Haruki MurakamiRead
Similar quotes
Material possessions, winning scores, and great reputations are meaningless in the eyes of the Lord, because He knows what we really are and that is all that matters.
John WoodenRead
Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Read
Love of country is the Mason's deed; world citizenship is his thought.
Benjamin FranklinRead
Providence is like a curious piece of tapestry made of a thousand shreds, which, single, appear useless, but put together, they represent a beautiful history to the eye.
John FlavelRead
There is no past we can bring back by longing for it. There is only an eternal now that builds and creates out of the past something new and better.
Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheRead
And besides, look at elder flowers and bluebells-they are a sign that pure creation takes place - even the butterfly. But humanity never gets beyond the caterpillar stage -it rots in the chrysalis, it never will have wings.It is anti-creation, like monkeys and baboons.
D. H. LawrenceRead