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Haruki Murakami Quotes - Page 18

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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

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
Gay, Pigs, Wind
"Kafka on the Shore". Book by Haruki Murakami , Chapter 19: Oshima, 2002.

I guess I felt attached to my weakness. My pain and suffering too. Summer light, the smell of a breeze, the sound of cicadas - if I like these things, why should I apologize?

Haruki Murakami
Summer, Pain, Light
"A Wild Sheep Chase". Book by Haruki Murakami, 1982.

Losing you is most difficult for me, but the nature of my love for you is what matters. If it distorts into half-truth, then perhaps it is better not to love you. I must keep my mind but loose you.

Haruki Murakami
Love You, What Matters, Mind
Haruki Murakami (1993). “Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: A Novel”, Vintage

Listening to the music while stretching her body close to its limit, she was able to attain a mysterious calm. She was simultaneously the torturer and the tortured, the forcer and the forced. This sense of inner-directed self-sufficiency was what she wanted most of all. It gave her deep solace.

Haruki Murakami
Inspirational, Motivational, Fitness

Confidence; as a teenager? Because I knew what I loved. I loved to read; I loved to listen to music; and I love cats. Those three things. So, even though I was an only kid, I could be happy because I knew what I loved.

Haruki Murakami
Love, Teenager, Cat
"Haruki Murakami: 'I took a gamble and survived'". Interview with Emma Brockes, www.theguardian.com. October 14, 2011.

Colours shone with exceptional clarity in the rain. The ground was a deep black, the pine branches a brilliant green, the people wrapped in yellow looking like special spirits that were allowed to wander over the earth on rainy mornings only.

Haruki Murakami
Morning, Rain, Yellow
FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Jun 08, 2015

Beyond the edge of the world there’s a space where emptiness and substance neatly overlap, where past and future form a continuous, endless loop. And, hovering about, there are signs no one has ever read, chords no one has ever heard.

Haruki Murakami
Past, Space, Substance

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
Doors, Rooms, Sides
"Haruki Murakami: 'I took a gamble and survived'". Interview with Emma Brockes, www.theguardian.com. October 14, 2011.

This is no honky-tonk parade. 1Q84 is the real world, where a cut draws real blood, where pain is real pain and fear is real fear. The moon in the sky is no paper moon.

Haruki Murakami
Pain, Real, Cutting

I get irritated, I get upset. Especially when I'm in a hurry. But I see it all as part of our training. To get irritated is to lose our way in life.

Haruki Murakami
Way In Life, Upset, Training
"A Wild Sheep Chase". Book by Haruki Murakami, October 13, 1982.

You know what I think?" she says. "That people's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn't matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned. They're all just fuel. Advertising fillers in the newspaper, philosophy books, dirty pictures in a magazine, a bundle of ten-thousand-yen bills: when you feed 'em to the fire, they're all just paper.

Haruki Murakami
Memories, Philosophy, Dirty
FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Oct 20, 2014

There weren't any curtains in the windows, and the books that didn't fit into the bookshelf lay piled on the floor like a bunch of intellectual refugees.

Haruki Murakami
Book, Intellectual, Window

The library was like a second home. Or maybe more like a real home, more than the place I lived in. By going every day I got to know all the lady librarians who worked there. They knew my name and always said hi. I was painfully shy, though, and could barely reply.

Haruki Murakami
Real, Home, Names

Some people think literature is high culture and that it should only have a small readership. I don't think so... I have to compete with popular culture, including TV, magazines, movies and video games.

Haruki Murakami
Thinking, Games, People

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
Moving, Goes On, World
"The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel". Book by Haruki Murakami, 1997.

For me, writing a novel is like having a dream. Writing a novel lets me intentionally dream while I'm still awake. I can continue yesterday's dream today, something you can't normally do in everyday life.

Haruki Murakami
Dream, Writing, Yesterday
"Kafka on the Shore, readers at sea" by Sam Jordison, www.theguardian.com. August 20, 2015.

Like most novelists, I like to do exactly the opposite of what I'm told. It's in my nature as a novelist. Novelists can't trust anything they haven't seen with their own eyes or touched with their own hands.

Haruki Murakami
Eye, Acceptance, Hands
"Murakami defies protests to accept Jerusalem prize" by Alison Flood, www.theguardian.com. February 16, 2009.

I'm often asked what I think about as I run. Usually the people who ask this have never run long distances themselves. I always ponder the question. What exactly do I think about when I'm running? I don't have a clue.

Haruki Murakami
Running, Distance, Thinking
FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Apr 21, 2014

I didn't have much to say to anybody but kept to myself and my books. With my eyes closed, I would touch a familiar book and draw it's fragrance deep inside me. This was enough to make me happy.

Haruki Murakami
Book, Eye, Enough
FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Sep 24, 2015

Generally, people who are good at writing letters have no need to write letters. They've got plenty of life to lead inside their own context.

Haruki Murakami
Writing, People, Needs
Haruki Murakami (2011). “A Wild Sheep Chase”, p.63, Random House

You know what I'd really like to do the most right now? Climb up to the top of some high place like the pyramids. The highest place I can find. Where you can see forever. Stand on the very top, look all around the world, see all the scenery, and see with my own eyes what's been lost from the world.

Haruki Murakami
Eye, Pyramids, Forever
FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Mar 18, 2016

You've already decided what you're going to do, and all that's left is to set the wheels in motion. I mean, it's your life. Basically, you gotta go with what you think is right.

Haruki Murakami
Mean, Thinking, Wheels

You like to write. It's the single most important quality for someone who wants to be a writer. But not in itself enough.

Haruki Murakami
Writing, Important, Quality

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
Birthday, Writing, Remembers Everything

In his own way, he's lived life with all the intensity he could muster.

Haruki Murakami
Way, Intensity, Muster
Haruki Murakami (2011). “Norwegian Wood”, p.240, Random House

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