An artist's concern is to capture beauty wherever he finds it.

I discovered that my imagination came alive when I moved away from the immediate world around me.

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.

I think it's quite difficult to understand what kind of life a writer leads. They might be millionaires, or they might be starving people.

The problem, as I see it, is that you've been told and not told. You've been told, but none of you really understand, and I dare say, some people are quite happy to leave it that way.

I find Japanese books quite baffling when I read them in translation. It's only with Haruki Murakami that I find Japanse fiction that I can understand and relate to. He's a very international writer.

I loved cowboy films and TV series, and I learned bits of English from them. My favorite was 'Laramie', with Robert Fuller and John Smith. I used to watch 'The Lone Ranger', which had been famous in Japan as well. I idolized these cowboys.