Writing a book is a way of thinking to me, the only way of thinking that I have found successful.

When Im writing a novel, which is what I like to write, I get up early, sit zazen, make a pot of green tea. I wear wrist cuffs to keep my wrists warm and minimize irritation from extended contact with the surface of my desk. I sit down and write.

Life is fleeting. Don't waste a single moment of your precious life. Wake up now! And now! And now!

She smiled. “Life is full of stories. Or maybe life is only stories. Good night, my dear Nao.

Am I crazy?" she asked. "I feel like I am sometimes." "Maybe," he said, rubbing her forehead. "But don't worry about it. You need to be a little bit crazy. Crazy is the price you pay for having an imagination. It's your superpower. Tapping into the dream. It's a good thing not a bad thing.

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.

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