After all, what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished?

If you are under the impression you have already perfected yourself, you will never rise to the heights you are no doubt capable of.

After all, what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished?

I can't even say I made my own mistakes. Really - one has to ask oneself - what dignity is there in that?

I think I had actually served my apprenticeship as a writer of fiction by writing all those songs. I had already been through phases of autobiographical or experimental stuff.

To see the best before I have properly begun would be somewhat premature.

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.