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Good style happens in one of two ways: the writer either has an inborn talent or is willing to work herself to death to get it.

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
Either
Death
Happens
Inborn
Two
Writer
Writing
Talent
Work
Style
Way
Willing
Good
Ways

More quotes by Haruki Murakami

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Life's no piece of cake, mind you, but the recipe's my own to fool with.
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Once thing goes wrong, then the whole house of cards collapses. And there's no way you can extricate yourself. Until someone comes along to drag you out.
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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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No matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away.
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Nobody's easier to fool, than the person who is convinced that he is right.
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If I stayed here, something inside me would be lost forever—something I couldn't afford to lose. It was like a vague dream, a burning, unfulfilled desire. The kind of dream people have only when they're seventeen.
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No matter what you tell me, no matter how legitimate your reasons, I can never just forget about you, I can never push the years we spent together out of my mind. I can't do it because it really happened, they are part of my life, and there is no way I can just erase them. That would be the same as erasing my own self.
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.
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Whenever I write a novel, music just sort of naturally slips in (much like cats do, I suppose).
Haruki Murakami
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If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.
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Killing time is not an easy job.
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There's no war that will end all wars.
Haruki Murakami
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It's a dark, cool, quiet place. A basement in your soul. And that place can sometimes be dangerous to the human mind. I can open the door and enter that darkness, but I have to be very careful. I can find my story there. Then I bring that thing to the surface, into the real world.
Haruki Murakami
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I can be hurt, you know. I can get as exhausted as anybody else. I can feel so bad I want to cry, too.
Haruki Murakami
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There had to be something wrong with my life. I should have been born a Yugoslavian shepherd who looked up at the Big Dipper every night.
Haruki Murakami
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Gays, lesbians, straights, feminists, fascist pigs, communists, Hare Krishnas - none of them bother me. I don't care what banner they raise. But what I can't stand are hollow people. When I'm with them I just can't bare it, and wind up saying things I shouldn't.
Haruki Murakami
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I've translated a lot of American literature into Japanese, and I think that what makes a good translator is, above all, a feel for language and also a great affection for the work you're translating. If one of those elements is missing the translation won't be worth much.
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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My grandpa always said asking a question is embarrassing for a moment, but not asking is embarrassing for a lifetime.
Haruki Murakami
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To know one’s own state is not a simple matter. One cannot look directly at one’s own face with one’s own eyes, for example. One has no choice but to look at one’s reflection in the mirror. Through experience, we come to believe that the image is correct, but that is all.
Haruki Murakami