I like novelists who can create other interesting worlds.

I spent ages figuring out things like viewpoint, how you tell the story, and so on.

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

There was surely nothing to indicate at the time that such evidently small incidents would render whole dreams forever irredeemable.

You need to remember that. If you’re to have decent lives, you have to know who you are and what lies ahead of you, every one of you.

I was very young when I prepared those prints. I suspect the reason I couldn't celebrate the floating world was that I couldn't bring myself to believe in its worth. Young men are often guilt-ridden about pleasure, and I suppose I was no different. I suppose I thought that to pass away one's time in such places, to spend one's skills celebrating things so intangible and transient, I suppose I thought it all rather wasteful, all rather decadent. It's hard to appreciate the beauty of a world when one doubts its very validity

What is difficult is the promotion, balancing the public side of a writer's life with the writing. I think that's something a lot of writers are having to face. Writers have become much more public now.