“Urging others to read F. Scott Fitzgerald, if not a reactionary act, was not something one could do in 1968.” — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
“They knew the difference between thoroughness and overkill. It was like Jay Gatsby's library: the books were real, but the pages were… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
I'm a writer, not a professional runner. It's fun and it helps me write. I need powerful concentration. — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
Which is why I am writing this book. To think. To understand. It just happens to be the way I'm made. I… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
“Nobody ever recommended or even desired that I be a novelist - in fact, some tried to stop me. I had the… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
Good style happens in one of two ways: the writer either has an inborn talent or is willing to work herself to… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
I hate requests. They make me feel unhappy. It's like when I take a book out of the library. As soon as… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
“It just happens to be the way that I'm made. I have to write things down to feel I fully comprehend them.” — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
I write weird stories. I don't know why I like weirdness so much ... But when I write, I write weird. That's… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
“To be a Russian writer at the end of the nineteenth century must have meant bearing an inescapably bitter fate. The more… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
“When you introduce things that most readers have never seen before into a piece of fiction, you have to describe them with… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
When I open them, most of the books have the smell of an earlier time leaking out between the pages - a… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
I have no idea! I have been writing for 35 years and from the beginning up to now the situation's almost the… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
“It's not that I don't believe in contemporary literature," he added, "but I don't want to waste valuable time reading any book… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
The world in books seemed so much more alive to me than anything outside. I could see things I'd never seen before.… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
“What's crucial is whether your writing attains the standards you've set for yourself. (...) Basically a writer has a quiet, inner motivation,… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
You like to write. It's the single most important quality for someone who wants to be a writer. But not in itself… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
Like a Chinese box, the world of the novel contained smaller worlds, and inside those were yet smaller worlds. Together, these worlds… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
It's physical. If you keep on writing for three years, every day, you should be strong. Of course you have to be… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
I'm not intelligent. I'm not arrogant. I'm just like the people who read my books. I used to have a jazz club,… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
I didn't have much to say to anybody but kept to myself and my books. With my eyes closed, I would touch… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
Most people dream a dream when they are asleep. But to be a writer, you have to dream while you are awake,… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
“Writing novels is much the same. You gather up bones and make your gate, but no matter how wonderful the gate might… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
Before I became a writer, I was running a jazz bar in the center of Tokyo, which means that I worked in… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
I always feel like I'm struggling to become someone else. Like I'm trying to find a new place, grab hold of a new life,… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden. — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
“The sad truth is that what I could recall in five seconds all too soon needed ten, then thirty, thena full minute...” — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
“Intelligent teenage girls were often instinctively theatrical, purposely eccentric, mouthing highly suggestive words to confuse people.” — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
Memory is like fiction; or else it's fiction that's like memory. This really came home to me once I started writing fiction, that memory… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
The most dangerous creature here would have to be me. So maybe I'm just scared of my own shadow. — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
If you listen to the radio for a whole hour there's maybe one decent song. The rest is mass-produced garbage — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
“that one of our problems was our inability to recognize and accept our own deformities” — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
“When I look back at myself at age twenty, what I remember most is being alone and lonely. I had no girlfriend to warm… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
“There's not a branch of publishing or broadcasting that doesn't depend in some way on advertising. It'd be like an aquarium without water. Why,… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
“One by one, I'll face the tasks before me and complete them as best I can. Focusing on each stride forward, but at the… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
“Eleven o'clock had come and gone. I had to find a way to bring this conversation to a successful conclusion and get out of… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
