What do you think? I'm not a starfish or a pepper tree. I'm a living, breathing human being. Of course I've been in love.

Before I became a writer, I was running a jazz bar in the center of Tokyo, which means that I worked in filthy air all the time late into the night. I was very excited when I started making a living out of my writing, and I decided, 'I will live in nothing but an absolutely healthy way.'

The better you were able to imagine what you wanted to imagine, the farther you could flee from reality.

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

A deserted library in the morning - there's something about it that really gets to me. All possible words and ideas are there, resting peacefully.

I like to read books. I like to listen to music.

Once, when I was younger, I thought I could be someone else. I'd move to Casablanca, open a bar, and I'd meet Ingrid Bergman. Or more realistically - whether actually more realistic or not - I'd tune in on a better life, something more suited to my true self. Toward that end, I had to undergo training. I read The Greening of America, and I saw Easy Rider three times. But like a boat with a twisted rudder, I kept coming back to the same place. I wasn't anywhere. I was myself, waiting on the shore for me to return.