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As Long As There's Such A Thing As Time, Everybody's Damaged In The End, Changed Into Something Else. It Always Happens, Sooner Or Later.
-Haruki Murakami
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As Long As There's

Haruki Murakami
...
As Long As There's Such A Thing As Time, Everybody's Damaged In The End, Changed Into Something Else. It Always Happens, Sooner Or Later.

Understanding the Quote: "as long as there's such a thing as time, everybody's damaged in..."

This quote by Haruki Murakami reflects deeply on the theme of long. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Long, Ends, Changed, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Haruki Murakami interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami is celebrated for insightful thoughts on long and ends. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Long
Ends
Changed
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Motto
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What I Think Is This: You Should Give Up Looking For Lost Cats And Start Searching For The Other Half Of Your Shadow.
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Thinking
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Use
Care
Thanks To The Long Days Of Rain, The Blades Of Grass Glowed With A Deep-green Luster, And They Gave Off The Smell Of Wildness Unique To Things That Sink Their Roots Into The Earth.
Rain
Unique
Roots
One Heart Is Not Connected To Another Through Harmony Alone. They Are, Instead, Linked Deeply Through Their Wounds
Heart
Harmony
Connected
Running Taught Me To Have Faith In My Skills As A Writer. I Learned How Much I Can Demand Of Myself, When I Need A Break, And When The Break Starts To Get Too Long. I Known How Hard I Am Allowed To Push Myself.
Running
Skills
Long
I Find Myself Thinking About My Ongoing Existence As A Human Being And The Path That Lies Ahead Of Me. Though Of Course These Thoughts Lead To But One Place - Death.
Lying
Thinking
Ongoing
But What Seems Like A Reasonable Distance To One Person Might Feel Too Far To Somebody Else.
Distance
Might
Feels
Where The Road Sloped Upward Beyond The Trees, I Sat And Looked Toward The Building Where Naoko Lived. It Was Easy To Tell Which Room Was Hers. All I Had To Do Was Find The One Window Toward The Back Where A Faint Light Trembled. I Focused On That Point Of Light For A Long, Long Time. It Made Me Think Of Something Like The Final Throb Of A Soul's Dying Embers. I Wanted To Cup My Hands Over What Was Left And Keep It Alive. I Went On Watching The Way Jay Gatsby Watched That Tiny Light On The Opposite Shore Night After Night.
Night
Thinking
Light
You Throw A Stone Into A Deep Pond. Splash. The Sound Is Big, And It Reverberates Throughout The Surrounding Area. What Comes Out Of The Pond After That? All We Can Do Is Stare At The Pond, Holding Our Breath.
Sound
Ponds
Stones
In Everybody’s Life There’s A Point Of No Return. And In A Very Few Cases, A Point Where You Can’t Go Forward Anymore. And When We Reach That Point, All We Can Do Is Quietly Accept The Fact. That’s How We Survive.
Life Lesson
Struggle
Return
Potentiality Knocks On The Door Of My Heart. [on Seeing The 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning ]
Beautiful
Girl
Morning
What's Really Important Here," I Whispered Loudly To Myself,"is Not The Big Things Other People Have Thought Up, But The Small Things You, Yourself Have
People
Important
Pithy
I Like To Read Books. I Like To Listen To Music.
Book
Listening To Music
It Was As If I Were Writing Letters To Hold Together The Pieces Of My Crumbling Life.
Writing
Together
Crumbling
The Worst Thoughts Usually Strike In The Dead Of The Night.
Night
Strikes
Worst
I Closed My Eyes And Tried To Sleep. But It Was Not Until Much Later That I Was Able To Get Any Real Sleep. In A Place Far Away From Anyone Or Anywhere, I Drifted Off For A Moment.
Real
Sleep
Eye
They Were Each Like A Mirror For The Other, Reflecting The Changes In Themselves.
Mirrors
Reflecting
I'm A Writer. I Don't Support Any War. That's My Principle.
War
Support
Principles
Possibilities Are Like Cancer. The More I Think About Them, The More They Multiply, And There's No Way To Stop Them. I'm Out Of Control.
Cancer
Thinking
Way
Let Me Tell You Something, Mari. The Ground We Stand On Looks Solid Enough, But If Something Happens It Can Drop Right Out From Under You. And Once That Happens, You've Had It: Things'll Never Be The Same. All You Can Do Is Go On, Living Alone Down There In The Darkness.
Darkness
Looks
Goes On
You Are 27 Or 28 Right? It Is Very Tough To Live At That Age. When Nothing Is Sure. I Have Sympathy With You.
Birthday
Sympathy
Age
When I Was Fifteen, All I Wanted Was To Go Off To Some Other World, A Place Beyond Anybody’s Reach. A Place Beyond The Flow Of Time.” - But There’s No Place Like That In This World. - Exactly. Which Is Why I’m Living Here, In This World Where Things Are Continually Damaged, Where The Heart Is Fickle, Where Time Flows Past Without A Break.
Heart
Past
Other Worlds
I Found A Bill Evans Record In The Bookcase And Was Listening To It While Drying My Hair When I Realized That It Was The Record I Had Played In Naoko's Room On The Night Of Her Birthday, The Night She Cried And I Took Her In My Arms. That Had Happened Only Six Months Earlier, But It Felt Like Something From A Much Remoter Past. Maybe It Felt That Way Because I Had Thought About It So Often-too Often, To The Point Where It Had Distorted My Sense Of Time.
Past
Night
Hair
Age Certainly Hadn't Conferred Any Smarts On Me. Character Maybe, But Mediocrity Is A Constant, As One Russian Writer Put It. Russian Writers Have A Way With Aphorisms. They Probably Spend All Winter Thinking Them Up.
Smart
Character
Winter
The Thoughts That Occur To Me While I’m Running Are Like Clouds In The Sky. Clouds Of All Different Sizes. They Come And They Go, While The Sky Remains The Same Sky Always. The Clouds Are Mere Guests In The Sky That Pass Away And Vanish, Leaving Behind The Sky.
Running
Sky
Clouds
I Was Twenty-one At The Time, About To Turn Twenty-two. No Prospect Of Graduating Soon, And Yet No Reason To Quit School. Caught In The Most Curiously Depressing Circumstances. For Months I'd Been Stuck, Unable To Take One Step In Any New Direction. The World Kept Moving On; I Alone Was At A Standstill. In The Autumn, Everything Took On A Desolate Cast, The Colors Swiftly Fading Before My Eyes. The Sunlight, The Smell Of The Grass, The Faintest Patter Of Rain, Everything Got On My Nerves.
Depressing
Moving
Rain
But Actually Time Isn't A Straight Line. It Doesn't Ave A Shape. In All Senses Of The Term, It Doesn't Have Any Form. But Since We Can't Picture Something Without Form In Our Minds, For The Sake Of Convenience We Understand It As A Straight Line. At This Point, Humans Are The Only Ones Who Can Make That Sort Of Conceptual Substitution.
Mind
Shapes
Lines
Even When I Ran My Bar I Followed The Same Policy. A Lot Of Customers Came To The Bar. If One In Ten Enjoyed The Place And Said He'd Come Again, That Was Enough. If One Out Of Ten Was A Repeat Customer, Then The Business Would Survive. To Put It Another Way, It Didn't Matter If Nine Out Of Ten Didn't Like My Bar. This Realization Lifted A Weight Off My Shoulders. Still, I Had To Make Sure That The One Person Who Did Like The Place.
Running
Weight
Matter
That Was The Rule. Break One Of My Rules Once, And I’m Bound To Break Many More.
Break
Bounds
Even If We Could Turn Back, We'd Probably Never End Up Where We Started.
Life
Ends
Turns
Writing Talent Is Similar To The Art Of Chatting Up A Girl. You Can Improve To A Certain Degree Through Practice, But Basically You Are Either Born With It Or You Aren't.
Girl
Art
Writing
Loving Another Person Is A Wonderful Thing, And If That Love Is Sincere, No One Ends Up Tossed Into A Labyrinth. You Have To Have More Faith In Yourself.
Love Is
Labyrinth
Wonderful
We Knew Exactly What We Wanted In Each Other. And Even So, It Ended. One Day It Stopped, As If The Film Simply Slipped Off The Reel.
One Day
Film
Wanted
That's Gotta Be One Of The Principles Behind Reality. Accepting Things That Are Hard To Comprehend, And Leaving Them That Way.
Reality
Leaving
Principles
Some Things, You Know, If You Say Them, It Makes Them Not True?
Knows
Ifs
I'm Not A Fast Thinker, But Once I Am Interested In Something, I Am Doing It For Many Years.
Years
Thinker
Of Course Life Frightens Me Sometimes. I Don't Happen To Take That As The Premise For Everything Else Though. I'm Going To Give It Hundred Percent And Go As Far As I Can. I'll Take What I Want And Leave What I Don't Want. That's How I Intend To Live My Life, And It Things Go Bad, I'll Stop And Reconsider At That Point. If You Think About It, An Unfair Society Is A Society That Makes It Possible For You To Exploit Your Abilities To The Limit.
Thinking
Giving
Want
I Am 55 Years Old Now. It Takes Three Years To Write One Book. I Don't Know How Many Books I Will Be Able To Write Before I Die. It Is Like A Countdown. So With Each Book I Am Praying - Please Let Me Live Until I Am Finished.
Book
Writing
Years
I Wander Though China. Without Ever Having Boarded A Plane. My Travels Take Place Here In The Tokoyo Subways, In The Backseat Of A Taxi... All Of A Sudden This City Will Start To Go. In A Flash, The Buildings Will Crumble. Over The Tokyo Streets Will Fall My China, Like Ash, Leaching Into Everything It Touches. Slowly, Gradually, Until Nothing Remains. No, This Isn't A Place For Me.
Fall
Cities
Ashes
And When You Come Back To Japan Next Summer, Let's Have That Date Or Whatever You Want To Call It. We Can Go To The Zoo Or The Botanical Garden Or The Aquarium, And Then We'll Have The Most Politically Correct And Scrumptious Omelets We Can Find.
Summer
Zoos
Garden
Whoa!" He Says With A Smile. The Wrinkles At The Corners Of His Eyes Deepen. "chicken Salad A La George Orwell!
Eye
Wrinkles
Salad
Ice Contains No Future , Just The Past, Sealed Away. As If They're Alive, Everything In The World Is Sealed Up Inside, Clear And Distinct. Ice Can Preserve All Kinds Of Things That Way- Cleanly, Clearly. That's The Essence Of Ice, The Role It Plays.
Past
Ice
Essence
The Curious Thing About Individuals Is That Their Singularity Always Goes Beyond Any Category Or Generalization In The Book.
Book
Individual
Curious
I’ve Built A Wall Around Me, Never Letting Anybody Inside And Trying Not To Venture Outside Myself
Wall
Trying
Venture
I Think Of Myself As More The Non-turn-on Type. So When I Do Get Turned On, I Don’t Trust It, I Have To Investigate The Source.
Thinking
Source
Type
Not Just Beautiful, Though--the Stars Are Like The Trees In The Forest, Alive And Breathing. And They're Watching Me.
Beautiful
Nature
Stars
It's Easy To Forget Things You Don't Need Anymore.
Needs
Forget
Easy
Everybody Has Some One Thing They Do Not Want To Lose," Began The Man. "you Included. And We Are Professionals At Finding Out That Very Thing. Humans By Necessity Must Have A Midway Point Between Their Desires And Their Pride. Just As All Objects Must Have A Center Of Gravity. This Is Something We Can Pinpoint. Only When It Is Gone Do People Realize It Even Existed.
Pride
Men
People
People Want To Be Bowled Over By Something Special. Nine Times Out Of Ten You Might Strike Out, But That Tenth Time, That Peak Experience, Is What People Want. That's What Can Move The World. That's Art.
Art
Moving
People
Among The Many Values In Life, I Appreciate Freedom Most.
Appreciate
Value Of Life
Values
The Ocean Was One Of The Greatest Things He Had Ever Seen In His Life—bigger And Deeper Than Anything He Had Imagined. It Changed Its Color And Shape And Expression According To Time And Place And Weather. It Aroused A Deep Sadness In His Heart, And At The Same Time It Brought His Heart Peace And Comfort.
Ocean
Heart
Sadness
In Dreams Begins Responsiblities.
Dream
She's Letting Out Her Feelings. The Scary Thing Is Not Being Able To Do That. When Your Feelings Build Up And Harden And Die Inside, Then You're In Big Trouble.
Expression
Scary
Feelings
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.
Thinking
People
Brain
Silence, I Discover, Is Something You Can Actually Hear.
Life
Silence
Norwegian Wood
I Would Stare At The Grains Of Light Suspended In That Silent Space, Struggling To See Into My Own Heart. What Did I Want? And What Did Others Want From Me? But I Could Never Find The Answers. Sometimes I Would Reach Out And Try To Grasp The Grains Of Light, But My Fingers Touched Nothing.
Struggle
Heart
Light
Mountains, According To The Angle Of View, The Season, The Time Of Day, The Beholder's Frame Of Mind, Or Any One Thing, Can Effectively Change Their Appearance. Thus, It Is Essential To Recognize That We Can Never Know More Than One Side, One Small Aspect Of A Mountain.
Views
Mind
Mountain
I Am Struck By How, Except When You're Young, You Really Need To Prioritize In Life, Figuring Out In What Order You Should Divide Up Your Time And Energy. If You Don't Get That Sort Of System Set By A Certain Age, You'll Lack Focus And Your Life Will Be Out Of Balance.
Order
Focus
Balance
Narrow Minds Devoid Of Imagination. Intolerance, Theories Cut Off From Reality, Empty Terminology, Usurped Ideals, Inflexible Systems. Those Are The Things That Really Frighten Me. What I Absolutely Fear And Loathe.
Cutting
Reality
Imagination
Everybody Has To Start Somewhere. You Have Your Whole Future Ahead Of You. Perfection Doesn't Happen Right Away.
Perfection
Fresh Start
Happens
I Don't Care What You Do To Me, But I Don't Want You To Hurt Me. I've Had Enough Hurt Already In My Life. More Than Enough. Now I Want To Be Happy.
Hurt
Care
Want
There Are Lots Of Things We Never Understand, No Matter How Many Years We Put On, No Matter How Much Experience We Accumulate.
Years
Matter
Everything Was Too Sharp And Clear, So That I Could Never Tell Where To Start- The Way A Map That Shows Too Much Can Sometimes Be Useless.
Useless
Maps
Too Much
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