Quotes by Haruki Murakami

• You are 27 or 28 right? It is very tough to live at that age. When nothing is sure. I have sympathy with you.
• 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.
• It is hard to be an individual in Japan.
• There's no such thing as perfect writing, just like there's no such thing as perfect despair.
• In Japan they prefer the realistic style. They like answers and conclusions, but my stories have none. I want to leave them wide open to every possibility. I think my readers understand that openness.
• Most young people were getting jobs in big companies, becoming company men. I wanted to be individual.
• Everything passes. Nobody gets anything for keeps. And that's how we've got to live.
• 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.
• 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.
• Every storm is a teacher; every adversity is a lesson; every setback is an opportunity for growth.
• Life is a canvas, and every moment is a stroke of the brush - embrace the imperfections, for they create the masterpiece.
• Life is a canvas, and it’s up to you to paint your own masterpiece.
• The greatness of a person is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
• The more limitations one has, the closer one is to the innermost core of one's being.
• The only way to achieve greatness is through struggle.
• When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what the storm is all about.
• Remember, where there is sunshine, there are also shadows.
• Fall seven times, stand up eight; it's not just the getting knocked down that counts, but the grace in how you rise back up.