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I could have been a cult writer if I'd kept writing surrealistic novels. But I wanted to break into the mainstream, so I had to prove that I could write a realistic book.

Haruki Murakami

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Haruki Murakami
Age: 75
Born: 1949
Born: January 12
Athletics Competitor
Essayist
Linguist
Novelist
Prosaist
Science Fiction Writer
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Kyōto
Murakami Haruki
Book
Novels
Writing
Kept
Prove
Writer
Novel
Surrealistic
Break
Cult
Write
Mainstream
Wanted
Realistic

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What the world needs is a set villain that people can point at and say, “It’s all your fault!
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If you keep on writing for three years, every day, you should be strong. Of course, you have to be strong mentally, also. But in the first place, you have to be strong physically. That is a very important thing. Physically and mentally you have to be strong.
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Waves of thought are stirring. In a twilight corner of her consciousness, one tiny fragment and another tiny fragment call out wordlessly to eachother, their spreading ripples intermingling.
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Become like a sheet of blotting paper and soak it all in. Later on you can figure out what to keep and what to unload.
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I am here, alone, at the end of the world. I reach out and touch nothing.”.
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Do you know what ‘Sputnik’ means in Russian? ‘Travelling companion’. I looked it up in a dictionary not long ago. Kind of a strange coincidence if you think about it. I wonder why the Russians gave their satellite that strange name. It’s just a poor little lump of metal, spinning around the Earth.
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The grounds of the place were dominated by several large, old willow trees that towered over the surrounding stone wall and swayed soundlessly in the wind like lost souls.
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Everything. Things you lost. Things you’re gonna lose. Everything. Here’s where it all ties together.
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Exerting yourself to the limit over and over again, that is the essence of running. Running is painful, but the pain doesn't leave me, I can take care of it. That agrees with my mentality.
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The faintest gleam of their lost memories glimmered for the briefest moment in their hearts.
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If I stayed here, something inside me would be lost forever—something I couldn't afford to lose. It was like a vague dream, a burning, unfulfilled desire. The kind of dream people have only when they're seventeen.
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Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s part of what it means to be alive.
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A poet might die at twenty-one, a revolutionary or a rock star at twenty four. But after that you assume everything’s going to be all right. you’ve made it past Dead Man’s Curve and you’re out of the tunnel, cruising straight for your destination down a six lane highway whether you want it or not.
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Fate seems to be taking me in some even stranger directions.
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If you want to talk about something new, you have to make up a new kind of language.
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My shadow is only half of what it should be. Everyone has their shortcomings.
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Overhead, the two moons worked together to bathe the world in a strange light.
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Nothing in the real world is as beautiful as the illusions of a person about to lose consciousness.
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The dead will always be dead, but we have to go on living.
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Nature is actually unnatural
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