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When I was fifteen, all I wanted was to go off to some other world, a place beyond anybody’s reach. A place beyond the flow of time.” - But there’s no place like that in this world. - Exactly. Which is why I’m living here, in this world where things are continually damaged, where the heart is fickle, where time flows past without a break.
Haruki Murakami
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A certain something, he felt, had managed to work its way in through a tiny opening and was trying to fill a blank space inside him. The void was not one that she had made. It had always been there inside him. She had merely managed to shine a special light on it.
Haruki Murakami
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Don’t you see? You and he might never cross paths again. Of course, a chance meeting could occur, and I hope it happens. I really do, for your sake. But realistically speaking, you have to see there’s a huge possibility you’ll never be able to meet him again. And even if you do meet, he might already be married to somebody else. He might have two kids. Isn’t that so? And in that case, you may have to live the rest of your life alone, never being joined with the one person you love in all the world. Don’t you find that scary?
Haruki Murakami
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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.
Haruki Murakami
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In other words, let's face it: Life is basically unfair. But even in a situation that's unfair, I think it's possible to seek out a kind of fairness. Of course, that might take time and effort. And maybe it won't seem to be worth all that. It's up to each individual to decide whether or not it is.
Haruki Murakami
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I go by the gut. I might not appear to have any talent but I've got plenty of gut instinct.
Haruki Murakami
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It's a dark, cool, quiet place. A basement in your soul. And that place can sometimes be dangerous to the human mind. I can open the door and enter that darkness, but I have to be very careful. I can find my story there. Then I bring that thing to the surface, into the real world.
Haruki Murakami
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What do I like about math? , When I've got figures in front of me, it relaxes me. Kind of like, everything fits where it belongs.
Haruki Murakami
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Still, in the end, we all die just the same.
Haruki Murakami
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Whatever it is you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting.
Haruki Murakami
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Is action merely the incidental product of thought, or is thought the consequential product of action?
Haruki Murakami
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Nature is actually unnatural.
Haruki Murakami
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It's true that at the time I was fond of Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan, and it was from them that I learned about this kind of simple, swift-paced style, but the main reason for the style of my first novel is that I simply did not have the time to write sustained prose.
Haruki Murakami
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Somewhere in his body--perhaps in the marrow of his bones--he would continue to feel her absence.
Haruki Murakami
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Whenever she felt like crying, she would instead become angry—at someone else or at herself—which meant that it was rare for her to shed tears.
Haruki Murakami
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To keep on going, you have to keep up the rhythm.
Haruki Murakami
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There were plenty of women around who dressed smartly, and plenty more who dressed to impress, but this girl was different. Totally different. She wore her clothing with such utter naturalness and grace that she could have been a bird that had wrapped itself in a special wind as it made ready to fly off to another world. He had never seen a woman who wore her clothes with such apparent joy. And the clothes themselves looked as if, in being draped on her body, they had won new life for themselves.
Haruki Murakami
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Things like that happen all the time in this great big world of ours. It's like taking a boat out on a beautiful lake on a beautiful day and thinking both the sky and the lake are beautiful. So stop eating yourself up alive. Things will go where they're supposed to go if you just let them take their natural course.
Haruki Murakami
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I'm not going to get involved in a debate with you. Just remember this: the gods give, and the gods take away. Even if you are not aware of having been granted what you posses, the gods remember what they gave you. They don't forget a thing. You should use the abilities you have been granted with the utmost care.
Haruki Murakami
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She was hearing everything that went on in his heart, like a person who can trace a map with his fingertip and conjure up vivid, living scenery.
Haruki Murakami
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What happens when people open their hearts?... They get better.
Haruki Murakami
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How much do you love me?' Midori asked. 'Enough to melt all the tigers in the world to butter,' I said.
Haruki Murakami
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Animals that not only move by their own free will and share feelings with people but also possess sight and hearing qualify as deserving of names.
Haruki Murakami
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In order to pin down reality as realilty, we need another reality to relativize the first. Yet that other reality requires a third reality to serve as its grounding. An endless chain is created within our consciousness, and it is the maintenance of this chain which produces the sensation that we are actually here, that we ourselves exist.
Haruki Murakami
