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Haruki Murakami Quotes - Page 23

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Open your eyes, train your ears, use your head. If a mind you have, then use it while you can.

Open your eyes, train your ears, use your head. If a mind you have, then use it while you can.

Haruki Murakami
Eye, Mind, Use
Haruki Murakami (1993). “Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: A Novel”, Vintage

I collect records. And cats. I don't have any cats right now. But if I'm taking a walk and I see a cat, I'm happy.

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

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
Believe, Eye, Reflection
FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Jul 29, 2016

The most dangerous creature here would have to be me. So maybe I'm just scared of my own shadow.

Haruki Murakami
Shadow, Scared, Dangerous

I'm a very ordinary human being; I just happen to like reading books.

Haruki Murakami
Book, Reading, Ordinary
"IQ84". Book by Haruki Murakami, 2010.

I like to read books. I like to listen to music.

Haruki Murakami
Book, Listening To Music
"Haruki Murakami: 'I took a gamble and survived'". Interview with Emma Brockes, www.theguardian.com. October 14, 2011.

When I start to write, I don't have any plan at all. I just wait for the story to come.

Haruki Murakami
Writing, Waiting, Stories

I am nothing. I’m like someone who’s been thrown into the ocean at night, floating all alone. I reach out, but no one is there. I call out, but no one answers. I have no connection to anything.

Haruki Murakami
Ocean, Night, Numbness
FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Nov 09, 2013

You can have tons of talent, but it won't necessarily keep you fed. If you have sharp instincts, through, you'll never go hungry.

Haruki Murakami
Talent, Hungry, Instinct
Haruki Murakami (2011). “1Q84: Books 1 and 2”, p.77, Random House

My short stories are like soft shadows I have set out in the world, faint footprints I have left. I remember exactly where I set down each and every one of them, and how I felt when I did. Short stories are like guideposts to my heart.

Haruki Murakami
Writing, Heart, Shadow
Haruki Murakami (2011). “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman”, p.9, Random House

A short story I have written long ago would barge into my house in the middle of the night, shake me awake and shout, 'Hey,this is no time for sleeping! You can't forget me, there's still more to write!' Impelled by that voice, I would find myself writing a novel. In this sense, too, my short stories and novels connect inside me in a very natural, organic way.

Haruki Murakami
Writing, Sleep, Night

The sad truth is that certain types of things can't go backward. Once they start going forward, no matter what you do, they can't go back the way they were. If even one little thing goes awry, then that's how it will stay forever.

Haruki Murakami
Forever, Littles, Matter
Haruki Murakami (2011). “South Of The Border, West Of The Sun”, p.129, Random House

If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden.

Haruki Murakami
Writing, Garden, Stories

For a while" is a phrase whose length can't be measured.At least by the person who's waiting.

Haruki Murakami
Time, Waiting, Phrases
Haruki Murakami (2011). “South Of The Border, West Of The Sun”, p.146, Random House

The ones with no imagination are always the quickest to justify themselves.

Haruki Murakami
Imagination, Justify

I’m just kinda tired. Like a monkey in the rain.

Haruki Murakami
Rain, Tired, Monkeys

It's the real world, full of gaps and inconsistencies and anticlimaxes.

Haruki Murakami
Real, World, Gaps

Fairness is a concept that holds only in limited situations. Yet we want the concept to extend to everything, in and out of phase. From snails to hardware stores to married life. Maybe no one finds it, or even misses it, but fairness is like love. What is given has nothing to do with what we seek.

Haruki Murakami
Like Love, Missing, Phases
FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Jun 16, 2016

Tengo could hardly believe it-- that in this frantic, labyrinth-like world, two people's hearts-- a boy's and a girl's-- could be connected, unchanged, even though they hadn't seen each other for twenty years.

Haruki Murakami
Girl, Believe, Heart

It seemed to me that this world has a serious shortage of both logic and kindness.

Haruki Murakami
Kindness, World, Serious

The worst thoughts usually strike in the dead of the night.

Haruki Murakami
Night, Strikes, Worst

To sleep with a woman: it can seem of the utmost importance in your mind, or then again it can seem like nothing much at all. Which only goes to say that there's sex as therapy (self-therapy, that is) and there's sex as pastime.

Haruki Murakami
Sex, Sleep, Self
"A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel". Book by Haruki Murakami, October 13, 1982.

What would tomorrow bring? I wondered. Both hands on the wheel, I closed my eyes. I didn’t feel like I was in my own body; my body was just a lonely, temporary container I happened to be borrowing. What would become of me tomorrow I did not know.

Haruki Murakami
Lonely, Eye, Hands

All of us are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world.

Haruki Murakami
Imperfect World, Imperfection, Norwegian Wood

I’m me, and at the same time not me. That’s what it felt like. A very still, quiet feeling.

Haruki Murakami
Feelings, Quiet, Stills
Haruki Murakami (2011). “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running”, p.114, Random House

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