Death leaves cans of shaving cream half-used.

Our memory is made up of our individual memories and our collective memories. The two are intimately linked. And history is our collective memory. If our collective memory is taken from us - is rewritten - we lose the ability to sustain our true selves.

My biggest fault is that the faults I was born with grow bigger each year.

If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.

In Japan they prefer the realistic style. They like answers and conclusions, but my stories have none. I want to leave them wide open to every possibility. I think my readers understand that openness.

If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden.

He sometimes wondered if she had become involved with him just so that she could cry in someone's arms. Maybe she can't cry alone, and that's why she needs me.