The ambiguous orientation of Japan drove the country into the position of an invader in Asia.

Fundamentally a good author has his or her own sense of style. There is a natural, deep voice, and that voice is present from the first draft of a manuscript. When he or she elaborates on the initial manuscript, it continues to strengthen and simplify that natural, deep voice.

However, please allow me to say that the fundamental style of my writing has been to start from my personal matters and then to link it up with society, the state and the world.

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.

The way Japan had tried to build up a modern state modelled on the West was cataclysmic.

The ideal teacher student relationship exists when the student is better than the teacher.

If any suffering was fruitless it was the agony of a hangover; what he suffered now could not expiate suffering of any other kind.