In most cases learning something essential in life requires physical pain.

That's what the world is , after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.

Painful is the stress when one cannot reproduce or convey vividly to others, however hard he tries, what he's experienced so intensely.

The best point of my novels, I think, is their humor. I want to keep many my works humorous.

That's how people live in the real world: forcing stuff on each other.

I wander though China. Without ever having boarded a plane. My travels take place here in the Tokoyo subways, in the backseat of a taxi... all of a sudden this city will start to go. In a flash, the buildings will crumble. Over the Tokyo streets will fall my China, like ash, leaching into everything it touches. Slowly, gradually, until nothing remains. No, this isn't a place for me.

I was reborn," she said, her hot breath brushing his ear. "You were reborn," Tengo said. "Because I died once." "You died once," Tengo repeated. "On a night when there was a cold rain falling," she said. "Why did you die?" "So I would be reborn like this." "You would be reborn," Tengo said. "More or less," she whispered quietly. "In all sorts of forms.