I think we think in terms of stories.

Two people who are a little bit deluded in each other's favour. That's what love is, isn't it?

For white men, to live is to own, or to try to own more, or to die trying to own more. Their appetites are astonishing! They own wardrobes, slaves, carriages, houses, warehouses, and ships. They own ports, cities, plantations, valleys, mountains, chains of islands. They own this world, its jungles, its skies, and its seas. Yet they complain that Dejima is a prison. They complain they are not free.

But you have read Madame Bovary?' (I'd never heard of her books.) 'No.

maybe the meaning of life lies in looking for it

A novelist needs to know his own strong points and weak points.

Pain is strong, aye - but friends' eyes, more strong." I told him that he knows next to nothing about me & I know nothing about him. He jabbed at his eyes & jabbed at mine, as if that single gesture were ample explanation.