Do all kids have to worry about their parents’ mental health? The way society is set up, parents are supposed to be the grown-up ones and look after the kids, but a lot of times it’s the other way around.

When I start writing novels, I go into them with a spirit of inquiry, rather than to substantiate prejudices I had in the beginning. If you don't do that, you can't write good characters.

It takes a long time to write a book. I'm not going to spend that much time trying to deliver a message. The reason I do it is because I want to understand something myself. It's not a delivery device, it's an inquiry device. Didactic fiction to my mind never works. It backfires.

I have a pretty good memory, but memories are time beings, too, like cherry blossoms or ginkgo leaves; for a while they are beautiful, and then they fade and die.

The relationship between reader and writer is reciprocal in a way. We co-create each other. We are constantly emerging out of the relationship we have with others.

She sat back on her heels and nodded. The thought experiment she proposed was certainly odd, but her point was simple. Everything in the universe was constantly changing, and nothing stays the same, and we must understand how quickly time flows by if we are to wake up and truly live our lives. That’s what it means to be a time being, old Jiko told me, and then she snapped her crooked fingers again. And just like that, you die.

Life is evanescent, but left to itself it rarely fails to offer some consolation.