Haruki Murakami
When I'm running I don't have to talk to anybody and don't have to listen to anybody. This is a part of my day I can't do without.Collection: Running
Okay, let’s put it this way. I would like to sleep with you. But it’s alright if I don’t sleep with you. What I’m saying is I’d like to be as fair as possible. I don’t want to force anything on anybody, any more than I’d want anything forced on me. It’s enough that I feel your presence or see your commas swirling around me.Collection: Sleep
The heavy smell of flower petals stroked the walls of my lungs.Collection: Wall
I’m a very ordinary human being; I just happen to like reading books.Collection: Reading
Be fearless, be brave, be bold, love yourself.Collection: Love You
I’m all alone, but I’m not lonely.Collection: Lonely
You don’t have to judge the whole world by your own standards. Not everybody is like you, you know.Collection: Judging
You’re not a kid anymore. You have the right to choose your own life. You can start again. If you want a cat, all you have to do is choose a life in which you can have a cat. It’s simple. It’s your right.Collection: Kids
Say it before you run out of time. Say it before it’s too late. Say what you’re feeling. Waiting is a mistake.Collection: Waiting
If you can love someone with your whole heart, even one person, then there’s salvation in life. Even if you can’t get together with that person.Collection: Hope
People’s memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive.Collection: Memories
The moon had been observing the earth close-up longer than anyone. It must have witnessed all of the phenomena occurring – and all of the acts carried out – on this earth. But the moon remained silent; it told no stories.Collection: Stories
Which is why I am writing this book. To think. To understand. It just happens to be the way I’m made. I have to write things down to feel I fully comprehend them.Collection: Book
Between the time the last train leaves and the first train arrives, the place changes: it’s not the same as in daytime.Collection: Firsts
Have books ‘happened’ to you? Unless your answer to that question is ‘yes,’ I’m unsure how to talk to you.Collection: Book
I started writing at the kitchen table after midnight. It took ten months to finish that first book; I sent it to a publisher and I got some kind of prize, so it was like a dream – I was surprised to find it happening.Collection: Book
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.Collection: Book
I go back to the reading room, where I sink down in the sofa and into the world of The Arabian Nights. Slowly, like a movie fadeout, the real world evaporates. I’m alone, inside the world of the story. My favourite feeling in the world.Collection: Reading
I am 55 years old now. It takes three years to write one book. I don’t know how many books I will be able to write before I die. It is like a countdown. So with each book I am praying – please let me live until I am finished.Collection: Book
I don’t know how many good books I still have in me; I hope there are another four or five.Collection: Book
It’s like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.Collection: Stories
That’s what we all do: endlessly take the long way around.Collection: Stories
That’s how stories happen – with a turning point, an unexpected twist. There’s only one kind of happiness, but misfortune comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.Collection: Stories
All things in my novels are real for me. Some western critics said that Garcia Marquez’s novels are magic realism. However, I believe that Marquez must have experienced everything in his novels.Collection: Real
The good thing about writing book is that you can dream while you are awake...Collection: Book
What I’d like to be is a unique writer who’s different from everybody else. I want to be a writer who tells stories unlike other writers’.Collection: Stories
It is the same with anything – you have to learn through your own experience, paying your own way. You can’t learn it from a book.Collection: Book
When I start to write, I don’t have any plan at all. I just wait for the story to come.Collection: Stories
It’s just a feeling I have. What you see with your eyes is not necessarily real. My enemy is, among other things, the me inside me.Collection: Real