Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami

"Writing novels is much the same. You gather up bones and make your gate, but no matter how wonderful the gate might be, that alone doesn't make it a living breathing novel. A story is not something of this world. A real story requires a kind of magical baptism to link the world on this side with the world on the other side."
150 Quotes
"Writing novels is much the same. You gather up bones and make your gate, but no matter how wonderful the gate might be, that alone doesn't make it a living breathing novel. A story is not something of this world. A real story requires a kind of magical baptism to link the world on this side with the world on the other side."
Haruki Murakami Sputnik Sweetheart
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"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."
Haruki Murakami What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
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"It just happens to be the way that I'm made. I have to write things down to feel I fully comprehend them."
Haruki Murakami Norwegian Wood
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"Hundreds of butterflies flitted in and out of sight like short-lived punctuation marks in a stream of consciousness without beginning or end."
Haruki Murakami 1Q84
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"There weren't any curtains in the windows, and the books that didn't fit into the bookshelf lay piled on the floor like a bunch of intellectual refugees."
Haruki Murakami Sputnik Sweetheart
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"If you're young and talented, it's like you have wings."
Haruki Murakami What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
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"There's no such thing as perfect writing, just like there's no such thing as perfect despair."
Haruki Murakami Hear the Wind Sing
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"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."
Haruki Murakami Kafka on the Shore
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"Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it."
Haruki Murakami Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman: 24 Stories
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"Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it's time for them to be hurt."
Haruki Murakami Norwegian Wood
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"When I open them, most of the books have the smell of an earlier time leaking out between the pages - a special odor of the knowledge and emotions that for ages have been calmly resting between the covers. Breathing it in, I glance through a few pages before returning each book to its shelf."
Haruki Murakami Kafka on the Shore
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"Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back. That's part of what it means to be alive. But inside our heads - at least that's where I imagine it - there's a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in awhile, let in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you'll live forever in your own private library."
Haruki Murakami Kafka on the Shore
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"If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking."
Haruki Murakami Norwegian Wood
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"Don't tell me anymore. You should have your dream, as the old woman told you to. I understand how you feel, but if you put those feelings into words they will turn into lies. (from Thailand)"
Haruki Murakami After the Quake
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"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."
Haruki Murakami 1Q84
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"At some point the future becomes reality. And then it quickly becomes the past."
Haruki Murakami 1Q84
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"What I was chasing in circles must have been the tail of the darkness inside me."
Haruki Murakami After the Quake
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"This may be the most important proposition revealed by history: 'At the time, no one knew what was coming."
Haruki Murakami 1Q84
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"There are symbolic dreams-- dreams that symbolize some reality. Then there are symbolic realities -- realities that symbolize a dream. Symbols are what you might call the honorary town councillors of the worm universe. In the worm universe, there is nothing unusual about a dairy cow seeking a pair of pliers. A cow is bound to get her pliers sometime. It has nothing to do with me."
Haruki Murakami A Wild Sheep Chase
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"In dreams begins responsiblities."
Haruki Murakami Kafka on the Shore
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