Since I have come to America, I am often asked whether my next novel will be set in America. I don't think it will. I think I will be living in America for some time to come, but while living in America, I would like to write about Japanese society from the outside.

That's all I think about these days. Must be because I have so much time to kill every day. When you don't have anything to do, your thoughts get really, really far out - so far out you can't follow them all the way to the end.

What I saw wasn't a ghost. It was simply--myself. I can never forget how terrified I was that night, and whenever I remember it, this thought always springs to mind: that the most frightening thing in the world is our own self. What do you think?

People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues.

Some people can work their butts off and never get what they're aiming for while others can get it without any effort at all.

I'll never see them again. I know that. And they know that. And knowing this, we say farewell.

I'm not so weird to me.