Money is the driving force of Hand to Mouth, the lack of money, and all those true stories about strange things in The Red Notebook, coincidences and unlikely events, surprise, the unexpected.

What matters is not how well you can avoid trouble, but how you cope with trouble when it comes.

It often happens that things are other than what they seem, and you can get yourself into trouble by jumping to conclusions.

What better portrait of a writer than to show a man who has been bewitched by books?

Stories happen only to those who are able to tell them, someone once said. In the same way, perhaps, experiences present themselves only to those who are able to have them.

When I think of Tokyo Story, yeah, it is like a novella. That doesn't mean it's not great. Some of my favorite Tolstoy works are his novellas.

For one reason or another, I became a passionate reader when I was very little. As soon as I could read, I wanted to read.