Thanks to the long days of rain, the blades of grass glowed with a deep-green luster, and they gave off the smell of wildness unique to things that sink their roots into the earth.

Inside that darkness, i saw rain falling on the sea. Rain softly falling on a vast sea, with no one there to see it. The rain strikes the surface of the sea, yet even the fish don't know it is raining.

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

I’ve had that kind of experience myself: I’m looking at a map and I see someplace that makes me think, ‘I absolutely have to go to this place, no matter what’. And most of the time, for some reason, the place is far away and hard to get to. I feel this overwhelming desire to know what kind of scenery the place has, or what people are doing there. It’s like measles - you can’t show other people exactly where the passion comes from. It’s curiosity in the purest sense. An inexplicable inspiration.

Distance might not solve anything, no matter how far you run.

I myself have been on my own and utterly independent since I graduated. I haven't belonged to any company or any system. It isn't easy to live like this in Japan.

There's no war that will end all wars.