Haruki Murakami Quotes

If I find something is interesting, there are probably other people who find it interesting… if I'm into what I'm doing, there will be other people who are into it, too.

Changing the world is good for those who want their names in books. But being happy, that is for those who write their names in the lives of others, and hold the hearts of others as the treasure most dear.

But life's joys are only joys if they can be shared.

I love having that conversation with someone I've never met before who's enjoying something that I wrote and being able to connect and share that.

Happiness is not perfected until it is shared.

My son and I discovered Terry Pratchett's books together, when he was about eleven years old. He'd be reading on his own and would start to laugh, and then eagerly read the passage aloud to me--and I'd do the same to him! Pratchett's books became a shared source of delight for us back then, and they still are today.

I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.

Love is what makes you do everything. It really does conquer all. With my first album, I was writing about empowerment hoping that would make it true. And now it is. I'm in charge. I make the rules. I've been writing since I was nine years old and I'm very much involved in the creative process. And now that I'm in a happier place in my personal life, I'm spitting songs out left and right.

Even heaven would become hell if you were alone in it, or away from a loved one. And even if you were with your loved one, but in hell, eventually you would cry to have you and your loved one together in heaven. So to create your own heaven on earth, make sure you and your loved one are in a place you both LOVE, because what could be heaven for one, could be hell for the other.

If we are to be happy, decent and secure of our souls: drink some kind of fermented liquor with one's food; go on the water from time to time; dance on occasions, and sing in a chorus.

A man is really alive only when he delights in the good-will of others.

Writing, acting, music, comedy. A deep love of literature and books. Thank God for all the artists who've helped me.

Happiness is not an individual matter. When you are able to bring relief, or bring back the smile to one person, not only that person profits, but you also profit.

In the end, it doesn’t matter how well we have performed or what we have accomplished—a life without heart is not worth living.

One can endure sorrow alone, but it takes two to be glad.

I would say [I love] writing, because lately I've been finishing my book.

Saying you're through with romance is like saying you're done with living, Betty. Life is better with a little romance, you know.

But once an idea for a novel seizes a writer...well, it’s like an inner fire that at first warms you and makes you feel good but then begins to eat you alive, burn you up from within. You can’t just walk away from the fire; it keeps burning. The only way to put it out is to write the book.

The books I write because I want to read them, the games because I want to play them, and stories I tell because I find them exciting personally.

So this is always the key: you have to write the book you love, the book that's alive in your heart. That's the one you have to write.

If we are to extract any joy out of our span, we must think and plan and make things better not only for ourselves but for others, since joy for ourselves depends upon our joy in others and theirs in us.

I'm reading Our Ecstatic Days, by Steve Erickson. It's an extraordinary journey and the most exciting thing I've found since The Master and Margarita, which I've read about 20 times. I like being taken away somewhere by a book.

God preserve us from writers who regurgitate what they have learnt from books! It is people's secrets we want to know - it is the natural history of the human heart that we have been trying to put down for a thousand years and everyone must and can leave their contribution.

I'm so happy to be around people. I just really like people, and being a freelancer can be lonely during the day, when you're at home trying to write anything you can.

Of all the things that make for happiness, the love of books comes first. No matter how the world may have used us, sure solace lies there.