Quotes from Haruki Murakami

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'.

There's no war that will end all wars.

If you want to talk about something new, you have to make up a new kind of language.

I try not to think about anything special while running. As a matter of fact, I usually run with my mind empty. However, when I run empty-minded, something naturally and abruptly crawls in sometime. That might become an idea that can help me with my writing.

Stories lie deep in our souls. Stories lie so deep at the bottom of our hearts that they can bring people together on the deepest level. When I write a novel, I go into such depths.

April and May were painful, lonely months for me because I couldn't talk to you. I never knew that spring could be so painful and lonely. Better to have three Februaries than a spring like this.

I used to run a full marathon in three hours and 25 or 26 minutes. Not any more.

I have no models in Japanese literature. I created my own style, my own way.

Writing is fun - at least mostly. I write for four hours every day. After that I go running. As a rule, 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). That's easy to manage.

Whenever I write a novel, I have a strong sense that I am doing something I was unable to do before. With each new work, I move up a step and discover something new inside me.

Constipation was one of the things she hated most in the world, on par with despicable men who commit domestic violence and narrow-minded religious fundamentalists.

Most young people were getting jobs in big companies, becoming company men. I wanted to be individual.

Like flowers scattered in a storm, a man's life is a long farewell.

Never trust a man who carries a handkerchief, I always say. One of many prejudicial rules of thumb.

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.

Since I have come to America, I am often asked whether my next novel will be set in America. I don't think it will. I think I will be living in America for some time to come, but while living in America, I would like to write about Japanese society from the outside.

Nobody likes being alone that much. I don't go out of my way to make friends, that's all. It just leads to disappointment.

It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.

Is it possible, in the final analysis, for one human being to achieve perfect understanding of another? We can invest enormous time and energy in serious efforts to know another person, but in the end, how close can we come to that person's essence? We convince ourselves that we know the other person well, but do we really know anything important about anyone?

Young people these days don't trust anything at all. They want to be free.

Among the many values in life, I appreciate freedom most.

There's no such thing as perfect writing, just like there's no such thing as perfect despair.

Despite your best efforts, people are going to be hurt when it's time for them to be hurt.

Not just beautiful, though--the stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they're watching me.