When you believe you have a future, you think in terms of generations and years. When you do not, you live not just by the day — but by the minute.

If the conditions were right there could be great acceptance. Often it is only when they pose an economic or political threat that it turns really ugly.

Often, what you see in the media is driven by economic forces.

Whatever is not commonly seen is condemned as alien.

The whole story of the comfort women, the system of forced sexual slavery, the medical experiments of Unit 731, is not something that is in the US psyche. That is changing because many books are coming out.

Your first duty as a writer is to write to please yourself. And you have no duty towards anyone else.

I don't mind solitude. I love talking to other people, but I do need my space.