Murakami Writing Quotes & Sayings

For me, writing a novel is like having a dream. Writing a novel lets me intentionally dream while I'm still awake. I can continue yesterday's dream today, something you can't normally do in everyday life. — Haruki Murakami

Snow floated down every once in a while, but it was frail snow, like a memory fading into the distance. — Haruki Murakami

It was as if I were writing letters to hold together the pieces of my crumbling life. — Haruki Murakami

Perhaps I'm just too painstaking a type of person, but I can't grasp much of anything without putting down my thoughts in writing. — Haruki Murakami

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. — Haruki Murakami

As I mentioned briefly on the phone, the best thing about the Air Chrysalis is that it's not an imitation of anyone. It has absolutely none of the usual new writer's sense of 'I want to be another so-and-so'. the syle, for sure, is rough,and the writing is clumsy. She even gets the title wrong: she's confusing 'chrysalis' and 'cocoon'. You could pick it apart completely if you wanted to. But the story itself has real power: it draws you in. the overall plots is a fantasy, but the descriptive details is incredibly real.The balance between the two is excellent. I don't know if words like 'originality' or Inevitability' fit here, and I suppose I might agree if someone insisted it's not at that level, but finally, after you work your way through the thing, with all its faults, it leaves a real impression- it gets to you in some strange, inexplicable way that may be a little disturbing. — Haruki Murakami

All the same, writing honestly is very difficult. The more I try to be honest, the farther my words sink into darkness. — Haruki Murakami

No matter where I find myself, this is the time of day I love best. The time that's mine alone. It'll be dawn soon, and I'm sitting here writing. Like Buddha, born from his mother's side (the right or the left, I can't recall), the new sun will lumber up and peek over the edge of the hills. — Haruki Murakami

Dreaming is the day job of novelists, but sharing our dreams is a still more important task for us. We cannot be novelists without this sense of sharing something. — Haruki Murakami

A gaping chasm separates what we try to be aware of and what we actually are aware of. And I don't care how long your yardstick is, there's no measuring that drop. What I can set down here in writing only amounts to a catalog. Not a novel, not literature, not even art. Just a notebook with a line ruled down the center. And maybe a lesson or two in it somewhere. — Haruki Murakami

My short stories are like soft shadows I have set out in the world, faint footprints I have left. I remember exactly where I set down each and every one of them, and how I felt when I did. Short stories are like guideposts to my heart ... — Haruki Murakami

I myself, as I'm writing, don't know who did it. The readers and I are on the same ground. When I start to write a story, I don't know the conclusion at all and I don't know what's going to happen next. If there is a murder case as the first thing, I don't know who the killer is. I write the book because I would like to find out. If I know who the killer is, there's no purpose to writing the story. — Haruki Murakami

I generally concentrate on work for three or four hours every morning. I sit at my desk and focus totally on what I'm writing. I don't see anything else, I don't think about anything else. — Haruki Murakami

Mere humans who root through their refrigerators at three o'clock in the morning can only produce writing that matches what they do. And that includes me. — Haruki Murakami

I wrote my first two long novels and an anthology of short narratives, when I was a manager of my own jazz bar. There was not enough time to write and I didn't know how to write novels. Therefore, I made written collages of aphorisms and rags. — Haruki Murakami

I find the act of writing very painful. I can go a whole month without managing a single line, or write three days and nights straight, only to find the whole thing has missed the mark.
At the same time, though, I love writing. Ascribing meaning to life is a piece of cake compared to actually living it. — Haruki Murakami

Tengo did not know for certain whether he wanted to be a professional novelist, nor was he sure he had the talent to write fiction. What he did know was that he could not help spending a large part of every day writing fiction. To him, writing was like breathing. — Haruki Murakami

I realize that all I can place in the imperfect vessel of writing are imperfect memories and imperfect thoughts. — Haruki Murakami

If possible, I'd like to avoid that kind of literary burnout. My idea of literature is something more spontaneous, more cohesive, something with a kind of natural, positive vitality. For me, writing a novel is like climbing a steep mountain, struggling up the face of the cliff, — Haruki Murakami

The exact same text was slightly different to read when viewed on the printed pages rather than on the word processor's screen. The feel of the words he chose would change depending on whether he was writing them on paper in pencil or typing them on the keyboard. It was imperative to do both. — Haruki Murakami

Like someone excitedly relating a story, only to find the words petering out, the path gets narrower the further I go, the undergrowth taking over. — Haruki Murakami

That's how it is with art. Mere humans who root through their refrigerators at three o'clock in the morning are incapable of such writing. — Haruki Murakami

In the end, writing is not a full step toward self-healing, just a tiny, very tentative move in that direction. — Haruki Murakami

September 1973, that's where this novel begins. That's the entrance. We'll just hope there's an exit. If there isn't one, there wouldn't be any point in writing anything. — Haruki Murakami

Once, long ago, when I was still young, when the memories were far
more vivid than they are now, I often tried to write about her. But I
couldn't produce a line. I knew that if that first line would come, the
rest would pour itself onto the page, but I could never make it happen.
Everything was too sharp and clear, so that I could never tell where to
start -the way a map that shows too much can sometimes be useless.
Now, though, I realize that all I can place in the imperfect vessel of
writing are imperfect memories and imperfect thoughts. The more the
memories of Naoko inside me fade, the more deeply I am able to
understand her. I know, too, why she asked me not to forget her.
Naoko herself knew, of course. She knew that my memories of her
would fade. Which is precisely why she begged me never to forget
her, to remember that she had existed. — Haruki Murakami

I never made any plan before writing, however I succeeded. I enjoyed writing with excitement ,"what happen on the next page?" — Haruki Murakami

Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that's the essence of running, and a metaphor for life - -and for me, for writing as well. — Haruki Murakami

Yes, it was. The process of writing was important. Even though the finished product is meaningless. — Haruki Murakami

There's no such thing as a perfect piece of writing. Just as there's no such thing as perfect despair. So — Haruki Murakami

Most people, though, only see the surface reality of writing and think of writers as involved in quiet, intellectual work done in their study. If you have the strength to lift a coffee cup, they figure, you can write a novel. But once you try your hand at it, you soon find that it isn't as peaceful a job as it seems. — Haruki Murakami

Most of what I know about writing I've learned through running every day. These are practical, physical lessons. How much can I push myself? How much rest is appropriate - and how much is too much? How far can I take something and still keep it decent and consistent? When does it become narrow-minded and inflexible? How much should I be aware of the world outside, and how much should I focus on my inner world? To what extent should I be confident in my abilities, and when should I start doubting myself? I know that if I hadn't become a long-distance runner when I became a novelist, my work would have been vastly different. How different? Hard to say. But something would have definitely been different. — Haruki Murakami

I find writing novels a challenge, writing stories a joy. If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden. — Haruki Murakami

Sometimes I run fast when I feel like it, but if I increase the pace I shorten the amount of time I run, the point being to let the exhilaration I feel at the end of each run carry over to the next day. This is the same sort of tack I find necessary when writing a novel. I stop every day right at the point where I feel I can write more. Do that, and the next day's work goes surprisingly smoothly. I think Ernest Hemingway did something like that. To keep on going, you have to keep up the rhythm. This is the important thing for long-term projects. Once you set the pace, the rest will follow. The problem is getting the flywheel to spin at a set speed-and to get to that point takes as much concentration and effort as you can manage. — Haruki Murakami

Generally, people who are good at writing letters have no need to write letters. They've got plenty of life to lead inside their own context. — Haruki Murakami

You could be anybody when you're writing. That's the reason that I'm writing: to be anybody. You can put your feet in various shoes and experience anything. — Haruki Murakami

Language is very tough, though, a tenacity that is backed up by a long history. However it is treated, its autonomy cannot be lost or seriously damaged, even if that treatment is rather rough. It is the inherent right of all writers to experiment with the possibilities of language in every way they can imagine - without that adventurous spirit, nothing new can ever be born. — Haruki Murakami

If you're young and talented, it's like you have wings. — Haruki Murakami

Thank you," she said. Then, as if writing a tiny footnote at the corner of a page, she added, "I might have a chance to see you again, someday. — Haruki Murakami

If you're looking for fine art or literature, you might want to read some stuff written by the Greeks. Because to create true fine art, slaves are a necessity. That's how the ancient Greeks felt, with slaves working the fields, cooking their meals, rowing their ships, all the while their citizens, under the Mediterranean Sun, indulged in poetry writing and grappled with mathematics. That was their idea of fine art. — Haruki Murakami

Every writer has his writing technique - what he can and can't do to describe something like war or history. I'm not good at writing about those things, but I try because I feel it is necessary to write that kind of thing. — Haruki Murakami

If she did experience sex
or something close to it
in high school, I'm sure it would have been less out of sexual desire or love than literary curiosity. — Haruki Murakami

I often recall these words when I am writing, and I think to myself, "It's true. There aren't any new words. Our job is to give new meanings and special overtones to absolutely ordinary words." I find the thought reassuring. It means that vast, unknown stretches still lie before us, fertile territories just waiting for us to cultivate them. — Haruki Murakami

I was enjoying myself writing, because I don't know what's going to happen when I take a ride around that corner. You don't know at all what you're going to find there. That can be thrilling when you read a book, especially when you're a kid and you're reading stories. — Haruki Murakami

They say it's a dangerous experiment to include dreams (actual dreams or otherwise) in the fiction you write. Only a handful of writers - and I'm talking the most talented - are able to pull off the irrational synthesis you find in dreams. — Haruki Murakami

How wonderful it is to be able to write someone a letter! To feel like conveying your thoughts to a person, to sit at your desk and pick up a pen, to put your thoughts into words like this is truly marvelous. — Haruki Murakami

Even when I ran my bar I followed the same policy. A lot of customers came to the bar. If one in ten enjoyed the place and said he'd come again, that was enough. If one out of ten was a repeat customer, then the business would survive. To put it another way, it didn't matter if nine out of ten didn't like my bar. This realization lifted a weight off my shoulders. Still, I had to make sure that the one person who did like the place really liked it. In order to make sure he did, I had to make my philosophy and stance clear-cut, and patiently maintain that stance no matter what. This is what I learned through running a business. — Haruki Murakami

Hundreds of butterflies flitted in and out of sight like short-lived punctuation marks in a stream of consciousness without beginning or end. — Haruki Murakami

If writers only wrote about things everybody knew, what the hell would be the point of writing? — Haruki Murakami

I'm not a fast reader. I like to linger over each sentence, enjoying the style. If I don't enjoy the writing, I stop. — Haruki Murakami

I read it, too," Komatsu said after a short pause. "Right after you called me. The writing is incredibly bad. It's ungrammatical, and in some places you have no idea what she's trying to say. She should go back to school and learn how to write a decent sentence before she starts writing fiction." "But you did read it to the end, didn't you?" Komatsu smiled. It was the kind of smile he might have found way in the back of a normally unopened drawer. "You're right, I did read it all the way through - much to my own surprise. I never read these new writer prize submissions from beginning to end. I even reread some parts of this one. Let's just say the planets were in perfect alignment. I'll grant it that much." "Which means it has something, don't you think? — Haruki Murakami

Now, though, I realize that all I can place in the imperfect vessel of writing are imperfect memories and imperfect thoughts. The more the memories of Naoko inside me fade, the more deeply I am able to understand her. — Haruki Murakami

In the novelist's profession, as far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing as winning or losing. Maybe numbers of copies sold, awards won, and critics' praise serve as outward standards for accomplishment in literature, but none of them really matter. What's crucial is whether your writing attains the standards you've set for yourself. Failure to reach that bar is not something you can easily explain away. When it comes to other people, you can always come up with a reasonable explanation, but you can't fool yourself. In this sense, writing novels and running full marathons are very much alike. — Haruki Murakami

I could have been a cult writer if I'd kept writing surrealistic novels. But I wanted to break into the mainstream, so I had to prove that I could write a realistic book. — Haruki Murakami

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. — Haruki Murakami

I skipped the thirty-one years between 1938 and 1965 and jumped to the section entitled "Junitaki Today." Of course, the book's "today" being 1970, it was hardly today's "today." Still, writing the history of one town obviously imposed the necessity of bringing it up to a "today." And even if such a today soon ceases to be today, no one can deny that it is in fact a today. For if a today ceased to be today, history could not exist as history. — Haruki Murakami

The good thing about writing book is that you can dream while you are awake ... — Haruki Murakami

Please do, however, allow me to deliver one very personal message. It is something that I always keep in mind while I am writing fiction. I have never gone so far as to write it on a piece of paper and paste it to the wall: Rather, it is carved into the wall of my mind, and it goes something like this:
"Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg."
Yes, no matter how right the wall may be and how wrong the egg, I will stand with the egg. Someone else will have to decide what is right and what is wrong; perhaps time or history will decide. If there were a novelist who, for whatever reason, wrote works standing with the wall, of what value would such works be? — Haruki Murakami

Cooking was not a chore for Tengo. He always used it as a time to think - about everyday problems, about math problems, about his writing, or about metaphysical propositions. He could think in a more orderly fashion while standing in the kitchen and moving his hands than while doing nothing. — Haruki Murakami

If you can't get it across in words, then it's better not to try. — Haruki Murakami

People sometimes sneer at those who run every day, claiming they'll go to any length to live longer. But don't think that's the reason most people run. Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest. If you're going to while away the years, it's far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive then in a fog, and I believe running helps you to do that. Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that's the essence of running, and a metaphor for life - and for me, for writing as whole. I believe many runners would agree — Haruki Murakami

Writing, to me, is the meaning of life. My life became something special because of writing. My desk is for me what the phone booth is for Clark Kent: Here I become Superman. I can do anything I want when I'm writing. I'm not afraid anymore. I can take anything from my imagination. I can save the world when I'm writing. But as soon as I leave the desk, I become Clark Kent again. Trust me, I am the most ordinary person in the world. I'm a good husband, I don't yell at anyone, never lose it. But I don't have a single idea for my literature in everyday life. When I run, cook or relax on the beach, there is absolutely nothing on my mind. — Haruki Murakami

When I write a novel I put into play all the information inside me. It might be Japanese information or it might be Western; I don't draw a distinction between the two. — Haruki Murakami

Writing talent is similar to the art of chatting up a girl. You can improve to a certain degree through practice, but basically you are either born with it or you aren't. — Haruki Murakami

I think history is collective memories. In writing, I'm using my own memory, and I'm using my collective memory. — Haruki Murakami

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. — Haruki Murakami

No matter how much enthusiasm and effort you put into writing, if you totally lack literary talent you can forget about being a novelist. — Haruki Murakami

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. — Haruki Murakami

Our lives are like a complex musical score. Filled with all sorts of cryptic writing, sixteenth and thirty-second notes and other strange signs. It's next to impossible to correctly interpret these, and even if you could, and could then transpose them into the correct sounds, there's no guarantee that people would correctly understand, or appreciate, the meaning therein. No guarantee it would make people happy. Why must the workings of people's lives be so convoluted? — Haruki Murakami

If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden. The two processes complement each other, creating a complete landscape that I treasure. The green foliage of the trees casts a pleasant shade over the earth, and the wind rustles the leaves, which are sometimes dyed a brilliant gold. Meanwhile, in the garden, buds appear on the flowers, and colorful petals attract bees and butterflies, reminding us of the subtle transition from one season to the next. — Haruki Murakami

In my case, if I start out by thinking about the plot, things don't go well. Small points, such as my impression of what is likely to occur, do come to mind, but I let the rest of the story take its own course. I don't want to spend as long as two years writing a story whose plot I already know. — Haruki Murakami

I write my novels personally, desperately and non-negligently. When I write my novels, I think about my novels only, and never do other works. — Haruki Murakami

I knew little about short story writing then so it was rough going, but I did find the experience very memorable. — Haruki Murakami

Writing from memory like this, I often feel a pang of dread. What if I've forgotten the most important thing? What if somewhere inside me there is a dark limbo where all the the truly important memories are heaped and slowly turning into mud? — Haruki Murakami

The task of writing consists primarily in recognizing the distance between oneself and the things around one. It is not sensitivity one needs, but a yardstick. — Haruki Murakami

I'll write to you. A super-long letter, like in an old-fashioned novel — Haruki Murakami

I just wanted to write something about running, but I realized that to write about my running is to write about my writing. It's a parallel thing in me. — Haruki Murakami

I placed the highest priority on the sort of life that lets me focus on writing, not associating with all the people around me. — Haruki Murakami

Writing a novel is like having a dream. — Haruki Murakami

I want to write about people who dream and wait for the night to end, who long for the light so they can hold the ones they love. — Haruki Murakami

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

I love pop culture
the Rolling Stones, the Doors, David Lynch, things like that.
That's why I said I don't like elitism. — Haruki Murakami

I think memory is the most important asset of human beings. It's a kind of fuel; it burns and it warms you. My memory is like a chest: There are so many drawers in that chest, and when I want to be a fifteen-year-old boy, I open up a certain drawer and I find the scenery I saw when I was a boy in Kobe. I can smell the air, and I can touch the ground, and I can see the green of the trees. That's why I want to write a book. — Haruki Murakami

Before I became a writer, I was running a jazz bar in the center of Tokyo, which means that I worked in filthy air all the time late into the night. I was very excited when I started making a living out of my writing, and I decided, 'I will live in nothing but an absolutely healthy way.' — Haruki Murakami

The good thing about writing books is that you can dream while you are awake. If it's a real dream, you cannot control it. When writing the book, you are awake; you can choose the time, the length, everything. I write for four or five hours in the morning and when the time comes, I stop. I can continue the next day. If it's a real dream, you can't do that. — Haruki Murakami

The thoughts that occur to me while I'm running are like clouds in the sky. Clouds of all different sizes. They come and they go, while the sky remains the same sky always. The clouds are mere guests in the sky that pass away and vanish, leaving behind the sky. — Haruki Murakami

Sometimes I find it too hot to run, and sometimes too cold. Or too cloudy. But I still go running. I know that if I didn't go running, I wouldn't go the next day either. It's not in human nature to take unnecessary burdens upon oneself, so one's body soon becomes disaccustomed. It mustn't do that. It's the same with writing. I write every day so that my mind doesn't become disaccustomed. — Haruki Murakami

It's physical. If you keep on writing for three years, every day, you should be strong. Of course you have to be strong mentally, also. But in the first place you have to be strong physically. That is a very important thing. Physically and mentally you have to be strong. — Haruki Murakami

In Murakami's short story 'The Kidney-Shaped Stone That Moves Every Day,' the main character is a writer. In describing the act of writing to a tightrope walker, he says, 'What a writer is *supposed* to do is observe and observe and observe again, and put off making judgments to the last possible moment.' I think that is a beautiful description of writing; it lets the world be, but also there is a moment, finally, of some kind of opinion. There is that moment, but to hold it off is a lovely and worthwhile goal. — Aimee Bender

When I am writing, I do not distinguish between the natural and supernatural. Everything seems real. That is my world, you could say. — Haruki Murakami

Kafka is one of my very favorite writers. Kafka's fictional world is already so complete that trying to follow in his steps is not just pointless, but quite risky, too. What I see myself doing, rather, is writing novels where, in my own way, I dismantle the fictional world of Kafka that itself dismantled the existing novelistic system. — Haruki Murakami

Writing things was important, wasn't it? Nakata asked.
'Yes, it was. The process of writing was important. Even though the finished product is completely meaningless. — Haruki Murakami

I always write my novels with music (I don't listened to the music seriously.) Music seems to encourage me. — Haruki Murakami

I never plan. I never know what the next page is going to be ... But that's the fun of writing a novel or a story, because I don't know what's going to happen next. — Haruki Murakami

Also I've got a dozen pencils, all sharpened and laid out in a row. They're brand-new. I just bought them at the stationery store - especially for writing to you (not that I'm trying to make you feel grateful or anything: just-sharpened, brand-new pencils are really nice, don't you think?). — Haruki Murakami

I have no idea! I have been writing for 35 years and from the beginning up to now the situation's almost the same. I'm kind of an ugly duckling. Always the duckling, never the swan. — Haruki Murakami

You get right down to it, writing is no means to self-help. It's scarcely a passing attempt at self-help. — Haruki Murakami

Writers have to keep on writing if they want to mature, like caterpillars endlessly chewing on leaves. — Haruki Murakami

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

To him, writing was like breathing. — Haruki Murakami

(When asked "Was the model for Midori (a character in Norwegian Wood) modeled after your wife?")
I showed your message to my wife. She got mad and yelled: "What would make them think I was the model for Midori?!" She told me to fix the misunderstanding immediately, so that's why I'm writing this reply now. Please stop causing problems in my household. Thank you. — Haruki Murakami