In Japan, the writers have made up a literary community, a circle, a society. I think 90 percent of Japan's writers live in Tokyo. Naturally, they make a community. There are groups and customs, and so they are tied up in a way.

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.

What gave money its true meaning was its dark-night namelessness, its breathtaking interchangeability.

Is action merely the incidental product of thought, or is thought the consequential product of action?

Sometimes I get real lonely sleeping with you.

Sometimes I feel like a caretaker of a museum -- a huge, empty museum where no one ever comes, and I'm watching over it for no one but myself.

Perhaps I'm just too painstaking a type of person, but I can't grasp much of anything without putting down my thoughts in writing.