Key Insights & Memorable Quotes
Below are the most popular and impactful highlights and quotes from 1Q84:
“Loneliness becomes an acid that eats away at you.”
“If you can love someone with your whole heart, even one person, then there's salvation in life. Even if you can't get together with that person.”
“I can bear any pain as long as it has meaning.”
“That's what the world is , after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.”
“I'm a very ordinary human being; I just happen to like reading books.”
“It is not that the meaning cannot be explained. But there are certain meanings that are lost forever the moment they are explained in words.”
“Even if we could turn back, we'd probably never end up where we started.”
“I'm tired of living unable to love anyone. I don't have a single friend - not one. And, worst of all, I can't even love myself. Why is that? Why can't I love myself? It's because I can't love anyone else. A person learns how to love himself through the simple acts of loving and being loved by someone else. Do you understand what I am saying? A person who is incapable of loving another cannot properly love himself.”
“You can keep as quiet as you like, but one of these days somebody is going to find you.”
“If you can't understand it without an explanation, you can't understand it with an explanation.”
“Find me now. Before someone else does.”
“Life is not like water. Things in life don't necessarily flow over the shortest possible route.”
“In a sense, I'm the one who ruined me: I did it myself.”
“I am nothing. I’m like someone who’s been thrown into the ocean at night, floating all alone. I reach out, but no one is there. I call out, but no one answers. I have no connection to anything.”
“What I want is for the two of us to meet somewhere by chance one day, like, passing on the street, or getting on the same bus.”
“As I see it, you are living with something that you keep hidden deep inside. Something heavy. I felt it from the first time I met you. You have a strong gaze, as if you have made up your mind about something. To tell you the truth, I myself carry such things around inside. Heavy things. That is how I can see it in you.”
“Most people are not looking for provable truths. As you said, truth is often accompanied by intense pain, and almost no one is looking for painful truths. What people need is beautiful, comforting stories that make them feel as if their lives have some meaning. Which is where religion comes from.”
“But there are certain meanings that are lost forever the moment they are explained in words.”
“I've been lonely for so long. And I've been hurt so deeply. If only I could have met you again a long time ago, then I wouldn't have had to take all these detours to get here.'Tengo shook his head. 'I don't think so. This way is just fine. This is exactly the right time. For both of us. [...] We needed that much time.... to understand how lonely we really were.”
“A person learns how to love himself through the simple acts of loving and being loved by someone else.”
“I'm a coward when it comes to matters of the heart. That is my fatal flaw.”
“Everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come.”
“As if to build a fence around the fatal emptiness inside her, she had to create a sunny person that she became. But if you peeled away the ornamental egos that she had built, there was only an abbys of nothingness and the intense thirst that came with it. Though she tried to forget it, the nothingness would visit her periodically - on a lonely rainy afternoon, or at dawn when she woke up from a nightmare. What she needed at such times was to be held by someone, anyone.”
“Such wounds to the heart will probably never heal. But we cannot simply sit and stare at our wounds forever.”
“Knowledge and ability were tools, not things to show off.”
“Wasn't it better if they kept this desire to see each other hidden within them, and never actually got together? That way, there would always be hope in their hearts. That hope would be a small, yet vital flame that warmed them to their core-- a tiny flame to cup one's hands around and protect from the wind, a flame that the violent winds of reality might easily extinguish.”
“Life is so uncertain: you never know what could happen. One way to deal with that is to keep your pajamas washed.”
“It's just that you're about to do something out of the ordinary. And after you do something like that, the everyday look of things might seem to change a little. Things may look different to you than they did before. But don't let appearances fool you. There's always only one reality.”
“Please remember: things are not what they seem.”
“The moon had been observing the earth close-up longer than anyone. It must have witnessed all of the phenomena occurring - and all of the acts carried out - on this earth. But the moon remained silent; it told no stories. All it did was embrace the heavy past with a cool, measured detachment. On the moon there was neither air nor wind. Its vacuum was perfect for preserving memories unscathed. No one could unlock the heart of the moon. Aomame raised her glass to the moon and asked, “Have you gone to bed with someone in your arms lately?” The moon did not answer. “Do you have any friends?” she asked. The moon did not answer. “Don’t you get tired of always playing it cool?”The moon did not answer.”
