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Knowledge and ability were tools, not things to show off.

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
Tools
Knowledge
Ability
Show
Shows
Things
Life

More quotes by Haruki Murakami

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When people tell a lie about something, they have to make up a bunch of lies to go with the first one. ‘Mythomania’ is the word for it.
Haruki Murakami
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Maybe it's just hiding somewhere. Or gone on a trip to come home. But falling in love is always a pretty crazy thing. It might appear out of the blue and just grab you. Who knows — maybe even tomorrow.
Haruki Murakami
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What’s most important is what you can’t see but can feel in your heart. To be able to grasp something of value, sometimes you have to perform seemingly inefficient acts. But even activities that appear fruitless don’t necessarily end up so. That’s the feeling I have, as someone who’s felt this, who’s experienced it.
Haruki Murakami
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If you think God’s there, He is. If you don’t, He isn’t. And if that’s what God’s like, I wouldn’t worry about it.
Haruki Murakami
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There's no such thing as perfect writing, just like there's no such thing as perfect despair.
Haruki Murakami
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If I choose to write about sheep, it's just because I happened to write about sheep. There is no deep significance.
Haruki Murakami
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I generally concentrate on work for three or four hours every morning. I sit at my desk and focus totally on what I’m writing. I don’t see anything else, I don’t think about anything else.
Haruki Murakami
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When I was fifteen, all I wanted was to go off to some other world, a place beyond anybody’s reach. A place beyond the flow of time.” - But there’s no place like that in this world. - Exactly. Which is why I’m living here, in this world where things are continually damaged, where the heart is fickle, where time flows past without a break.
Haruki Murakami
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The years nineteen and twenty are a crucial stage in the maturation of character, and if you allow yourself to become warped when you're that age, it will cause you pain when you're older.
Haruki Murakami
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For a while is a phrase whose length can't be measured.At least by the person who's waiting.
Haruki Murakami
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Better to be a first-class matchbox than a second-class match.
Haruki Murakami
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Dreams come from the past, not from the future. Dreams shouldn't control you--you should control them.
Haruki Murakami
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She was a keen observer, a precise user of language, sharp-tongued and funny. She could stir your emotions. Yes, really, that's what she was so good at - stirring people's emotions, moving you. And she knew she had this power...I only realized later. At the time, I had no idea what she was doing to me.
Haruki Murakami
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Before I became a writer, I was running a jazz bar in the center of Tokyo, which means that I worked in filthy air all the time late into the night. I was very excited when I started making a living out of my writing, and I decided, 'I will live in nothing but an absolutely healthy way.'
Haruki Murakami
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When I write about a 15-year old, I jump, I return to the days when I was that age. It's like a time machine. I can remember everything. I can feel the wind. I can smell the air. Very actually. Very vividly.
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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I move, therefore I am.
Haruki Murakami
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Even if we could turn back, we'd probably never end up where we started.
Haruki Murakami
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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.
Haruki Murakami
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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.
Haruki Murakami