The other side is usually a dark place?

Murakami in The New YorkerRead fiction and essays by the author.

Not necessarily. I think it has more to do with curiosity. If there is a door and you can open it and enter that other place, you do it. It’s just curiosity. What’s inside? What’s over there? So that’s what I do every day. When I’m writing a... See more

subtle stylist and a self-willed Everyman

I have learned so many things from music about writing. I think there are three important elements: rhythm, harmony, and free improvisation. I learned these things from music, not from literature. And when I started to write, I tried to write as though I were playing music.

a study of missed connections, of both the comedy and the tragedy triggered by our failures to understand one another.

I think life is a kind of laboratory where you can try anything.

I want to do is write serious, complicated, difficult things in a very easy style that is fluid and comfortable to read.

My rule is to try something new every time

I have learned so many things from music about writing. I think there are three important elements: rhythm, harmony, and free improvisation. I learned these things from music, not from literature. And when I started to write, I tried to write as though I were playing music.

If you can write, you’re not fixed. You can be anybody else—you have that possibility.