"I don't think of myself as an artist. I'm just a guy who can write."
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Quote collection
Haruki Murakami quotes (page 25 of 55)
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"You know, they've got these chocolate assortments, and you like some but you don't like others? And you eat all the ones you like, and the only ones left are the ones you don't like as much? I always think about that when something painful comes up. Now I just have to polish these off, and everything'll be OK. Life is a box of chocolates. I suppose you could call it a philosophy."
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"Never trust a man who carries a handkerchief, I always say. One of many prejudicial rules of thumb."
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"She's kind of funny looking. Her face is out of balance--broad forehead, button nose, freckled cheeks, and pointy ears. A slammed-together, rough sort of face you can't ignore. Still, the whole package isn't so bad. For all I know maybe she's not so wild about her own looks, but she seems comfortable with who she is, and that's the important thing."
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"It's just like Yeats said. In dreams begin responsibilities. Flip this around and you could say that where there's no power to imagine, no responsibility can arise."
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"You don't have to judge the whole world by your own standards. Not everybody is like you, you know."
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"There is nothing in this world that never takes a step outside a person's heart."
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"Is action merely the incidental product of thought, or is thought the consequential product of action?"
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"The power to concentrate was the most important thing. Living without this power would be like opening one’s eyes without seeing anything."
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"You make do with what you have. As you age you learn even to be happy with what you have."
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"If only I could fall sound asleep and wake up in my old reality!"
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"After all this, I won't start to hate you."
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"To me, love is a pure idea forged in flesh, awkwardly maybe, but it had to connect to somewhere, despite twists and turns of underground cable. An all-too-perfect thing. Sometimes the lines get crossed. Or you get a wrong number. But that's nobody's fault. It'll always be like that, so long as we exist in this physical form. As a matter of principle."
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"I couldn't tell wether the hole that opened up inside me was from missing you or from the change of season"
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"There are symbolic dreams-- dreams that symbolize some reality. Then there are symbolic realities -- realities that symbolize a dream. Symbols are what you might call the honorary town councillors of the worm universe. In the worm universe, there is nothing unusual about a dairy cow seeking a pair of pliers. A cow is bound to get her pliers sometime. It has nothing to do with me."
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"A girl doesn't always want to go out, you know, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. Sometimes she feels like being nasty--like, if the guy's gonna wait, let him really wait."
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"Where the road sloped upward beyond the trees, I sat and looked toward the building where Naoko lived. It was easy to tell which room was hers. All I had to do was find the one window toward the back where a faint light trembled. I focused on that point of light for a long, long time. It made me think of something like the final throb of a soul's dying embers. I wanted to cup my hands over what was left and keep it alive. I went on watching the way Jay Gatsby watched that tiny light on the opposite shore night after night."
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"If there's any guy crazy enough to attack me, I'm going to show him the end of the world -- close up. I'm going to let him see the kingdom come with his own eyes. I'm going to send him straight to the southern hemisphere and let the ashes of death rain all over him and the kangaroos and the wallabies."
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"This place is too calm, too natural--too complete. I don't deserve it. At least not yet."
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"I closed my own jazz bar so I could be a man who can write novels as I like. I was pleased about that. This pleasure was connected to the pleasure of writing."
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