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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
Linguist
Novelist
Prosaist
Science Fiction Writer
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Kyōto
Murakami Haruki
Writing
Took
Prize
Kind
Months
Sent
Like
Started
Kitchen
Dream
Table
Publisher
Find
Tables
Publishers
Firsts
Happenings
Midnight
Book
Ten
Finish
First
Happening
Surprised

More quotes by Haruki Murakami

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You make do with what you have. As you age you learn even to be happy with what you have.
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Mediocrity's like a spot on a shirt—it never comes off.
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When the fire goes out, you'll start feeling the cold. You'll wake up whether you want to or not.
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Nature is actually unnatural
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One listless day followed another, with nothing to distinguish one from the next. You could have changed the order and no one would have noticed.
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You live by yourself for a stretch of time and you get to staring at different objects. Sometimes you talk to yourself. You take meals in crowded joints. You develop an intimate relationship with your used Subaru. You slowly but surely become a has-been.
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I am struck by how, except when you're young, you really need to prioritize in life, figuring out in what order you should divide up your time and energy. If you don't get that sort of system set by a certain age, you'll lack focus and your life will be out of balance.
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This person, this self, this me, finally, was made somewhere else. Everything had come from somewhere else, and it would all go somewhere else. I was nothing but a pathway for the person known as me.
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What gave money its true meaning was its dark-night namelessness, its breathtaking interchangeability.
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Memory is like fiction or else it's fiction that's like memory.
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Don't you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place where you don't know a soul?
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Most people are not looking for provable truths. As you said, truth is often accompanied by intense pain, and almost no one is looking for painful truths. What people need is beautiful, comforting stories that make them feel as if their lives have some meaning. Which is where religion comes from.
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Possibilities are like cancer. The more I think about them, the more they multiply, and there's no way to stop them. I'm out of control.
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Writing is fun - at least mostly. I write for four hours every day. After that I go running. As a rule, 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). That's easy to manage.
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At least he never walked.
Haruki Murakami
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I don’t know, I don’t feel right unless I’ve got the sea and mountains nearby. People are mostly a product of where they were born and raised. How you think and feel’s always linked to the lay of the land, the temperature. The prevailing winds, even.
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I think of rivers, of tides. Forests and water gushing out. Rain and lightning. Rocks and shadows. All of these are in me.
Haruki Murakami
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Among the many values in life, I appreciate freedom most.
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My point is: in this whole wide world the only person you can depend on is you.
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It's a question of attitude. If you really work at something you can do it up to a point. If you really work at being happy you can do it up to a point. But anything more than that you can't. Anything more than that is luck.
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