If you go to Tokyo, I think it becomes very obvious that there's this almost seamless mixture of popular culture and Japanese traditional culture.

Don’t you wonder sometimes, what might have happened if you tried?

Memory is quite central for me. Part of it is that I like the actual texture of writing through memory.

I have the feeling of this completely alternative person I should have become. There was another life that I might have had, but I’m having this one.

You say you’re sure? Sure that you’re in love? How can you know it? You think love is so simple?

If you go to Tokyo, I think it becomes very obvious that there's this almost seamless mixture of popular culture and Japanese traditional culture.

And what made these heart-to-hearts possible--you might even say what made the whole friendship possible during that time--was this understanding we had that anything we told each other during these moments would be treated with careful respect: that we'd honor confidences, and that no matter how much we rowed, we wouldn't use against each other anything we'd talked about during those sessions.