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I started writing at the kitchen table after midnight. It took ten months to finish that first book I sent it to a publisher and I got some kind of prize, so it was like a dream - I was surprised to find it happening.

Haruki Murakami

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Haruki Murakami
Age: 75
Born: 1949
Born: January 12
Athletics Competitor
Essayist
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Prosaist
Science Fiction Writer
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University Teacher
Writer
Kyōto
Murakami Haruki
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More quotes by Haruki Murakami

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She's letting out her feelings. The scary thing is not being able to do that. When your feelings build up and harden and die inside, then you're in big trouble.
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Why do I act like this, agreeing when I really disagree, letting people force me to do things I don't want to do?
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Nature is actually unnatural
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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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Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Say you’re running and you think, ‘Man, this hurts, I can’t take it anymore. The ‘hurt’ part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand anymore is up to the runner himself.
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My face, my self, what would they mean to anybody? Just another stiff. So this self of mine passes some other's self on the street - what do we have to say to each other? Hey there! Hi ya!That's about it. Nobody raises a hand. No one turns around to take another look.
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Ordinary imperfect people, always choose similarly imperfect people as friends.
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There is nothing so cruel in this world as the desolation of having nothing to hope for.
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Animals that not only move by their own free will and share feelings with people but also possess sight and hearing qualify as deserving of names.
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She was truly a beautiful girl. I could feel a small polished stone sinking through the darkest waters of my heart. All those deep convoluted channels and passageways, and yet she managed to toss her pebble right down to the bottom of it all.
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Unclose your mind. You are not a prisoner. You are a bird in flight, searching the skies for dreams.
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I'm always tripped up by the eternal who am I?
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In Japan they prefer the realistic style. They like answers and conclusions, but my stories have none. I want to leave them wide open to every possibility. I think my readers understand that openness.
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Start making excuses and there's no end to it. I can't live that kind of life.
Haruki Murakami
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No matter where i go, i still end up me. What's missing never changes. The scenery may change, but i'm still the same incomplete person. The same missing elements torture me with a hunger that i can never satisfy. I think that lack itself is as close as i'll come to defining myself.
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Gazing at the rain, I consider what it means to belong, to become part of something. To have someone cry for me.
Haruki Murakami
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Reality's just the accumulation of ominous prophecies come to life. All you have to do is open a newspaper on any given day to weigh the good news versus the bad news, and you'll see what I mean.
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In the end, like so many beautiful promises in our lives, that dinner date never came to be.
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That's evolution. Evolution's always hard. Hard and bleak. No such thing as happy evolution
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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.
Haruki Murakami