After the end of the Second World War it was a categorical imperative for us to declare that we renounced war forever in a central article of the new Constitution.

The people of Hiroshima went to work at once to restore human society in the aftermath of the great atomic flood. They were concerned to salvage their own lives, but in the process they also salvaged the souls of the people who have brought the atomic bomb.

It is the second job of literature to create myth. But its first job is to destroy it.

The Japanese chose the principle of eternal peace as the basis of morality for our rebirth after the War.

I have survived by representing these sufferings of mine in the form of the novel.

I am one of the writers who wish to create serious works of literature which dissociate themselves from those novels which are mere reflections of the vast consumer cultures of Tokyo and the subcultures of the world at large.

It takes a person of great care and insight to watch for any abnormality in the green grass even while it grows abundantly and healthily.