“Tokyo is bigger than Kumamoto. And Japan is bigger than Tokyo. And even bigger than Japan... Even bigger than Japan is the inside of your head. Don't ever surrender yourself not to Japan, not to a...”

“When I was a student, there wasn't a single thing we did that was unrelated to others. It was all for the Emperor, or parents, or the country, or societyeverything was other-centered, which means t...”

“The call for political freedom took place long ago. The call for freedom of speech is also a thing of the past. Freedom is not a word to be used exclusively for phenomena such as this which are so ...”

“Hirota feels strongly drawn toward nature and the natural, is hyper-sensitive to the artificialparticularly that most cramped and constraining man-made creation, societyand does his best to avoid it.”

“Desire is a frightening thing.”

“But some characters in books are really real--Jane Austen's are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are ...”

“You take people, you put them on a journey, you give them peril, you find out who they really are.”

“A novel must show how the world truly is, how characters genuinely think, how events actually occur. A novel should somehow reveal the true source of our actions.”