Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Kind
Months
Sent
Like
Started
Kitchen
Dream
Table
Publisher
Find
Tables
Publishers
Firsts
Happenings
Midnight
Book
Ten
Finish
First
Happening
Surprised
Writing
Took
Prize

More quotes by Haruki Murakami

Image
I used to run a full marathon in three hours and 25 or 26 minutes. Not any more.
Haruki Murakami
Image
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
Image
With luck, it might even snow for us.
Haruki Murakami
Image
A deserted library in the morning - there's something about it that really gets to me. All possible words and ideas are there, resting peacefully.
Haruki Murakami
Image
Life might just be an absurd, even crude, chain of events and nothing more.
Haruki Murakami
Image
You are 27 or 28 right? It is very tough to live at that age. When nothing is sure. I have sympathy with you.
Haruki Murakami
Image
I want to write about people who dream and wait for the night to end, who long for the light so they can hold the ones they love.
Haruki Murakami
Image
You make do with what you have. As you age you learn even to be happy with what you have.
Haruki Murakami
Image
I'm not afraid to die. What I'm afraid of is having reality get the better of me, of having reality leave me behind.
Haruki Murakami
Image
There is nothing so cruel in this world as the desolation of having nothing to hope for.
Haruki Murakami
Image
We knew exactly what we wanted in each other. And even so, it ended. One day it stopped, as if the film simply slipped off the reel.
Haruki Murakami
Image
My shadow is only half of what it should be. Everyone has their shortcomings.
Haruki Murakami
Image
How many Sundays - how many hundreds of Sundays like this - lay ahead of me? “Quiet, peaceful, and lonely,” I said aloud to myself. On Sundays, I didn't wind my spring.
Haruki Murakami
Image
Every day I go to my study and sit at my desk and put the computer on. At that moment, I have to open the door. It's a big, heavy door. You have to go into the Other Room. Metaphorically, of course. And you have to come back to this side of the room. And you have to shut the door.
Haruki Murakami
Image
It is hard to be an individual in Japan.
Haruki Murakami
Image
In dreams you don't need to make any distinctions between things. Not at all. Boundaries don't exist. So in dreams there are hardly ever collisions. Even if there are, they don't hurt. Reality is different. Reality bites. Reality, reality.
Haruki Murakami
Image
Life is a lot more fragile than we think. So you should treat others in a way that leaves no regrets. Fairly, and if possible, sincerely.
Haruki Murakami
Image
I never could stand being forced to do something I didn't want to do at a time I didn't want to do it. Whenever I was able to do something I liked to do, though, when I wanted to do it, and the way I wanted to do it, I'd give it everything I had.
Haruki Murakami
Image
My grandpa always said asking a question is embarrassing for a moment, but not asking is embarrassing for a lifetime.
Haruki Murakami
Image
No matter how far you travel, you can never get away from yourself.
Haruki Murakami