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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
Wanted
Realistic
Book
Novels
Writing
Kept
Prove
Writer
Novel
Surrealistic
Break
Cult
Write
Mainstream

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It was a strange feeling, like touching a void.
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There has to be pain. That's the rule.
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If you do anything out of the ordinary, you can be sure someone, somewhere, will get upset.
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But knowing what I don’t want to do doesn’t help me figure out what I do want to do. I could do just about anything if somebody made me. But I don’t have an image of the one thing I really want to do. That’s my problem now. I can’t find the image.
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Irrepressible curiosity vied with an instinctive fear.
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An expectation was there, mixed in with so many other emotions - excitement, resignation, hesitation, confusion, fear - that would well up then wither on the vine. You're optimistic one moment, only to be racked the next by the certainty that it will all fall to pieces. And in the end it does.
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Music always stimulates my imagination. When I'm writing I usually have some Baroque music on low in the background chamber music by Bach, Telemann, and the like.
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Is action merely the incidental product of thought, or is thought the consequential product of action?
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I contented myself with whiskey, for medicinal purposes. It helped numb my various aches and pains. Not that the alcohol actually reduced the pain it just gave the pain a life of its own, apart from mine.
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Now and then may not be enough…You have to enjoy it while you’re still young. enjoy it to the fullest. You can use the memories of what you did to warm your body after you get old and can’t do it anymore.
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Memory is so crazy! It's like we've got these drawers crammed with tons of useless stuff. Meanwhile, all the really important things we just keep forgetting, one after the other.
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It's like the Tibetan Wheel of the Passions. As the wheel turns, the values and feelings on the outer rim rise and fall, shining or sinking into darkness. But true love stays fastened to the axle and doesn't move.
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So what’s wrong if there happens to be one guy in the world who enjoys trying to understand you?
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Still, in the end, we all die just the same.
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Once a guy starts using a wig, he has to keep using one. It's, like, his fate. That's why wig makers make such huge profits. I hate to say it, but they're like drug dealers.
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There's an essential order you have to follow in everything. It's a way of showing respect, following everything in the correct order.
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The better you were able to imagine what you wanted to imagine, the farther you could flee from reality.
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It's not me but the world that's deranged.
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Our hearts are not stones. A stone may disintegrate in time and lose its outward form. But hearts never disintegrate. They have no outward form, and whether good or evil, we can always communicate them to one another.
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But I found that the longer you teach, the more you feel like a total stranger to yourself
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