Haruki Murakami Quotes About Writing

Quotes about: Writing

• 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

  Writing, Heart, Shadow

  Haruki Murakami (2011). “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman”, p.9, Random House

• 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

  Dream, Writing, Night

  FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Nov 25, 2014

• Good style happens in one of two ways: the writer either has an inborn talent or is willing to work herself to death to get it.

  Haruki Murakami

  Writing, Two, Style

• A short story I have written long ago would barge into my house in the middle of the night, shake me awake and shout, 'Hey,this is no time for sleeping! You can't forget me, there's still more to write!' Impelled by that voice, I would find myself writing a novel. In this sense, too, my short stories and novels connect inside me in a very natural, organic way.

  Haruki Murakami

  Writing, Sleep, Night

• If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden.

  Haruki Murakami

  Writing, Garden, Stories

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

  Haruki Murakami

  Book, Writing, Long

• To be able to talk to your heart’s content about a book you like with someone who feels the same way about it is one of the greatest joys that life can offer.

  Haruki Murakami

  Book, Writing, Heart

  FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Apr 30, 2014

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

  Haruki Murakami

  Writing, Perfect, Insightful

  Haruki Murakami (1987). “風の歌を聴け”

• When I write about a 15-year old, I jump, I return to the days when I was that age. It's like a time machine. I can remember everything. I can feel the wind. I can smell the air. Very actually. Very vividly.

  Haruki Murakami

  Birthday, Writing, Remembers Everything

• 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

  Dream, Writing, Yesterday

  "Kafka on the Shore, readers at sea" by Sam Jordison, www.theguardian.com. August 20, 2015.

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

  Haruki Murakami

  Writing, Want, Mature

  Haruki Murakami (2011). “1Q84:”, p.184, Random House

• 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

  Dream, Morning, Real

• I don't think of myself as an artist. I'm just a guy who can write.

  Haruki Murakami

  Writing, Artist, Thinking

• I didn't want to be a writer, but I became one. And now I have many readers, in many countries. I think that's a miracle. So I think I have to be humble regarding this ability. I'm proud of it and I enjoy it, and it is strange to say it this way, but I respect it.

  Haruki Murakami

  Country, Writing, Humble

• When I start to write, I don't have any plan at all. I just wait for the story to come.

  Haruki Murakami

  Writing, Waiting, 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.

  Haruki Murakami

  Book, Writing, Thinking

  FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Apr 02, 2015

• 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

  Writing, Letters, Able

  Haruki Murakami (2011). “Norwegian Wood”, p.112, Random House

• 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.

  Haruki Murakami

  Book, Writing, Years

• Memory is like fiction; or else it's fiction that's like memory. This really came home to me once I started writing fiction, that memory seemd a kind of fiction, or vice versa. Either way, no matter how hard you try to put everything neatly into shape, the context wanders this way and that, until finally the context isn't even there anymore... Warm with life, hopeless unstable.

  Haruki Murakami

  Memories, Home, Writing

  Haruki Murakami (1994). “The Elephant Vanishes”, Vintage

• 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

  Writing, People, Needs

  Haruki Murakami (2011). “A Wild Sheep Chase”, p.63, Random House

• You like to write. It's the single most important quality for someone who wants to be a writer. But not in itself enough.

  Haruki Murakami

  Writing, Important, Quality

• I write weird stories. I don't know why I like weirdness so much ... But when I write, I write weird. That's very strange. When I'm getting more and more serious, I'm getting more and more weird.

  Haruki Murakami

  Writing, Stories, Serious

• 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

  Memories, Book, Writing

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

  Haruki Murakami

  Memories, Writing, Thinking

  "What Haruki Murakami talks about". Interview with Heidi Benson, www.sfgate.com. October 26, 2008.

• 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

  Running, Mean, Writing

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