Once again, life had a lesson to teach me: It takes years to build up, it takes moments to destroy. Sure, I'd gotten tired of this tiny space, but I'd had a good home here. In the time it takes to swill two cans of beer, all had had sublimed like morning mist. My job, my whiskey, my peace and quiet, my solitude, my Somerset Maugham, and John Ford collections-all of it trashed and worthless." - Meaning and context.">
QuotesCosmos
Chapter 19: Hamburgers,Skyline and Deadline
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Once again, life had a lesson to teach me: It takes years to build up, it takes moments to destroy. Sure, I'd gotten tired of this tiny space, but I'd had a good home here. In the time it takes to swill two cans of beer, all had had sublimed like morning mist. My job, my whiskey, my peace and quiet, my solitude, my Somerset Maugham, and John Ford collections-all of it trashed and worthless.

— Haruki Murakami

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Once again, life had a lesson to teach me: It takes years to build up, it takes moments to destroy. Sure, I'd gotten tired of this tiny space, but I'd had a good home here. In the time it takes to swill two cans of beer, all had had sublimed like morning mist. My job, my whiskey, my peace and quiet, my solitude, my Somerset Maugham, and John Ford collections-all of it trashed and worthless." in the context of "Chapter 19: Hamburgers,Skyline and Deadline" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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#takes#collectionsall#worthless#sublimed#solitude#somerset#moments#destroy#morning#whiskey#maugham
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.