At that point, Noriko finally breaks down and begins to cry sobbing into her hands as the floodgates open - this young woman who has suffered in silence for so long, this good woman who refuse to believe she's good, for only the good doubt their own goodness, which is what makes them good in the first place. The bad know they are good, but the good know nothing. They spend their lives forgiving others, but they can't forgive themselves.

I think most writers can't really think about their work without a kind of revulsion. And I think that's probably why we keep going back and trying again, trying to do better each time.

I never feel I'm standing on solid ground, and I do write with a certain kind of trembling fear.

But lost chances are as much a part of life as chances taken, and a story cannot dwell on what might have been.

I sometimes feel that my goal as a novelist would be to write a novel in which the language was so transparent that the reader would forget that language was the medium of understanding. Of course that's not possible, but it's some sort of idealized goal.

We have missed him in the sunshine, in the storm, in the twilight, ever since.

I write the paragraph, then I'm crossing out, changing words, trying to improve it. When it seems more or less OK, then I type it up because sometimes it's almost illegible, and if I wait, I might not be able to read it the next day.