I do want your happiness. But the absence of fighting or hatred or desire also means the opposites do not exist either. No joy, no communion, no love. Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the despair of loss, there is no hope." - Meaning and context.">
QuotesCosmos
Chapter 32, Shadow in the Throes of Death
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First, about the mind. You tell me there is no fighting or hatred or desire in the Town. That this is a beautiful dream, and I do want your happiness. But the absence of fighting or hatred or desire also means the opposites do not exist either. No joy, no communion, no love. Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the despair of loss, there is no hope.

— Haruki Murakami

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "First, about the mind. You tell me there is no fighting or hatred or desire in the Town. That this is a beautiful dream, and I do want your happiness. But the absence of fighting or hatred or desire also means the opposites do not exist either. No joy, no communion, no love. Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the despair of loss, there is no hope." in the context of "Chapter 32, Shadow in the Throes of Death" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Haruki Murakami" (Quotes, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985)) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app

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#Haruki Murakami#happiness#fighting#hatred#desire#disillusionment#depression#beautiful#opposites#communion#absence#without
Haruki Murakami

About Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami (ζ‘δΈŠ ζ˜₯ζ¨Ή Murakami Haruki, born 12 January 1949) is a best-selling contemporary Japanese writer. His works of fiction and non-fiction have garnered critical acclaim and numerous awards, both in Japan and internationally, including the World Fantasy Award (2006) and the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award (2006), while his whole oeuvre garnered the Franz Kafka Prize (2006), the Jerusalem Prize (2009), and the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Prize (2016) among others.