“Everyone may be ordinary, but they're not normal.”
Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
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Haruki Murakami 655
Japanese author, novelist 1949Related quotes
“You don't need to watch everyone if everyone believes they're being watched.”
Fourth Realm Trilogy (2005-2009), The Traveler (2005)

Source: The Corrections (2001)
Context: All around him, millions of newly minted American millionaires were engaged in the identical pursuit of feeling extraordinary - of buying the perfect Victorian, of skiing the virgin slope, of knowing the chef personally, of locating the beach that had no footprints. There were further tens of millions of young Americans who didn't have money but were nonetheless chasing the Perfect Cool. And meanwhile the sad truth was that not everyone could be extraordinary, not everyone could be extremely cool; because whom would this leave to be ordinary? Who would perform the thankless work of being comparatively uncool?

Source: The Black Room (1975), p. 20
Context: All men are stuck in a kind of fog. They're surrounded by a wall of fog. They think this is perfectly normal, but it's not. It means that since they can't see much beyond their own little situation, they tend to vegetate. They need some immediate stimulus to keep them alert.

The Kate Bush Story (2014)
Context: They're not "normal" songs. None of her songs have been "normal." She's just who she is, she's unique. She's — a mystery. She's the most beautiful mystery. … Let me tell you a story: when I had my civil partnership, nine years ago, in 2005, and Kate — we invited Kate, we didn't think she'd come but she came, she came with her husband Danny, and there were a lot of very famous people in that room, there were like 600 people — and all anybody wanted to meet was Kate Bush. I mean, musician, anybody — they couldn't believe Kate Bush was there. She's kind of an enigma.

The Best Things in Life Are Free
Song lyrics, Sam Cooke at the Copa (1964)