#at

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

— Haruki Murakami

#appreciate #freedom #i #life #many

I lost some of my friends because I got so famous, people who just assumed that I would be different now. I felt like everyone hated me. That is the most unhappy time of my life. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#be different #because #different #everyone #famous

Some people think literature is high culture and that it should only have a small readership. I don't think so... I have to compete with popular culture, including TV, magazines, movies and video games. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#culture #games #high #i #including

A fortunate author can write maybe twelve novels in his lifetime. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#fortunate #his #lifetime #maybe #novels

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

#air #bar #became #before #center

Concentration is one of the happiest things in my life. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#happiest #life #my life #things

Confidence, as a teenager? Because I knew what I loved. I loved to read; I loved to listen to music; and I loved cats. Those three things. So, even though I was an only kid, I could be happy because I knew what I loved. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#because #cats #confidence #could #even

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

— Haruki Murakami

#full #hours #i #marathon #minutes

I'm a writer, not a professional runner. It's fun and it helps me write. I need powerful concentration. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#fun #helps #i #me #need

Maybe, life is a kind of waking dream. Maybe, it's a double-dream with a false awakening. Maybe, the dream only becomes lucid and truly luminous given the fuller perspective of life after one's own wake. Maybe, the pictures never stop. Doesn't the existence of dreams and higher consciousness during the years of blackouts of a lifetime, whether longer or shorter, give us a valid premise to hope that another highly spiritual state may await our passing? ↗

— David B. Lentz

#dreams #luminous-dreams #beauty