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My shadow is only half of what it should be. Everyone has their shortcomings.

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
Everyone
Shortcomings
Shadow
Half

More quotes by Haruki Murakami

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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
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It takes years to build up, it takes moments to destroy.
Haruki Murakami
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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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A man is like a two-story house. The first floor is equipped with an entrance and a living room. On the second floor is every family member's room. They enjoy listening to music and reading books. On the first underground floor is the ruin of people's memories. The room filled with darkness is the second underground floor.
Haruki Murakami
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This is one more piece of advice I have for you: don't get impatient. Even if things are so tangled up you can't do anything, don't get desperate or blow a fuse and start yanking on one particular thread before it's ready to come undone. You have to realize it's going to be a long process and that you'll work on things slowly, one at a time.
Haruki Murakami
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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.
Haruki Murakami
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The facts and techniques or whatever they teach you in class isn't going to be veryuseful in the real world, that's for sure.
Haruki Murakami
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I'm a coward when it comes to matters of the heart. That is my fatal flaw.
Haruki Murakami
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It was a small room with dim light coming in the window, reminiscent of old Polish films.
Haruki Murakami
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...most people in the world don't really use their brains to think. And people who don't think are the ones who don't listen to others.
Haruki Murakami
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But intolerant,narrow minds with no imagination are like parasites that transform the host,change form,and continue to thrive. They're a lost cause, and I don't want anyone like that coming in here.
Haruki Murakami
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I began to draw an invisible boundary between myself and other people. No matter who I was dealing with. I maintained a set distance, carefully monitoring the person’s attitude so that they wouldn’t get any closer. I didn’t easily swallow what other people told me. My only passions were books and music
Haruki Murakami
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Memories and thoughts age, just as people do. But certain thoughts can never age, and certain memories can never fade.
Haruki Murakami
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I have no models in Japanese literature. I created my own style, my own way.
Haruki Murakami
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I would stare at the grains of light suspended in that silent space, struggling to see into my own heart. What did I want? And what did others want from me? But I could never find the answers. Sometimes I would reach out and try to grasp the grains of light, but my fingers touched nothing.
Haruki Murakami
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Then when dusk began to settle he would retrace his steps, back to his own world. And on the way home, a loneliness would always claim his heart. He could never quite get a grip on what it was. It just seemed that whatever lay waiting out there was all too vast, too overwhelming for him to possibly ever make a dent in.
Haruki Murakami
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I could disappear from the face of the earth, and the world would go on moving without the slightest twinge. Things were tremendously complicated, to be sure, but one thing was clear: no one needed me.
Haruki Murakami
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It's just like sex when [a book is] finished, it's finished.
Haruki Murakami
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That’s what love’s all about. You’re the only one having those wonderful feelings, but you have to go it alone as you wander through the dark your mind and body have to bear it all. All by yourself.
Haruki Murakami
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Writing talent is similar to the art of chatting up a girl. You can improve to a certain degree through practice, but basically you are either born with it or you aren't.
Haruki Murakami