Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.
Spend your money on the things money can buy. Spend your time on the things money can’t buy.
As time goes on, you’ll understand. What lasts, lasts; what doesn’t, doesn’t. Time solves most things. And what time can’t solve, you have to solve yourself.
The best point of my novels, I think, is their humor. I want to keep many my works humorous.
Crying is personal. On the other hand, laughing is more general. Laughing makes our hearts wider.
I have read all my novels that were translated into English. Reading my novels is enjoyable because I forget almost all the content in them.
It is my huge pleasure that my novels are translated into languages that are read among small numbers of people.
I write my novels personally, desperately and non-negligently. When I write my novels, I think about my novels only, and never do other works.
What I’d like to be is a unique writer who’s different from everybody else. I want to be a writer who tells stories unlike other writers’.
I don’t know a whole lot about symbolism. There seems to me to be a potential danger in symbolism. I feel more comfortable with metaphors and similes.
Music always stimulates my imagination. When I’m writing I usually have some Baroque music on low in the background chamber music by Bach, Telemann, and the like.
Myths are the prototype for all stories. When we write a story on our own it can’t help but link up with all sorts of myths. Myths are like a reservoir containing every story there is.
When I write a novel I put into play all the information inside me. It might be Japanese information or it might be Western; I don’t draw a distinction between the two.
I wrote my first two long novels and an anthology of short narratives, when I was a manager of my own jazz bar. There was not enough time to write and I didn’t know how to write novels. Therefore, I made written collages of aphorisms and rags.
All things in my novels are real for me. Some western critics said that Garcia Marquez’s novels are magic realism. However, I believe that Marquez must have experienced everything in his novels.
Adults need more complex narratives. They have their own narratives. The main characters are themselves.
Exerting yourself to the limit over and over again, that is the essence of running. Running is painful, but the pain doesn’t leave me, I can take care of it. That agrees with my mentality.
Running taught me to have faith in my skills as a writer. I learned how much I can demand of myself, when I need a break, and when the break starts to get too long. I know how hard I am allowed to push myself.