Life & Wisdom Quote by Haruki Murakami

Murakami frames authorship not as destiny but as a kind of benign accident that he’s still trying to metabolize. “I didn’t want to be a writer, but I became one” is a quiet demotion of ego: the origin story refuses the usual myth of the born artist. That opening clause matters because it positions success as something that happened to him rather than something he conquered, which makes the next turn - “many readers, in many countries” - feel less like a victory lap and more like a bewildering tally of consequences.

Calling that reach “a miracle” does double duty. It’s gratitude, sure, but it’s also a hedge against the market logic that treats global readership as proof of genius or brand mastery. Murakami’s subtext is that writing, at its best, exceeds intention: the book leaves the author’s control and becomes a private machine inside strangers’ lives. His humility isn’t modesty theater; it’s an ethical posture toward an unpredictable power.

The most revealing phrase is “I respect it.” Not “I respect my readers” (implied), not “I respect literature” (too grand), but “it” - the ability itself, as if writing were a force he’s temporarily entrusted with. That slight estrangement matches Murakami’s larger aesthetic: ordinary narrators encountering surreal systems they didn’t ask for. Pride and enjoyment are admitted, then disciplined. He’s making a case for craft as stewardship: you can take pleasure in the gift, but you don’t get to own the miracle.