Even though we now have the half-century-old new Constitution, there is a popular sentiment of support for the old one that lives on in reality in some quarters.

My observation is that after one hundred and twenty years of modernisation since the opening of the country, present-day Japan is split between two opposite poles of ambiguity.

The ambiguous orientation of Japan drove the country into the position of an invader in Asia.

After the end of the Second World War it was a categorical imperative for us to declare that we renounced war forever in a central article of the new Constitution.

It is the second job of literature to create myth. But its first job is to destroy it.

Paradoxically, the people and state of Japan living on such moral props were not innocent but had been stained by their own past history of invading other Asian countries.

There's no better reading experience than going to the place where a text was written.

The ideal teacher student relationship exists when the student is better than the teacher.

To be upright and to have an imagination: that is enough to be a very good young man.

However, please allow me to say that the fundamental style of my writing has been to start from my personal matters and then to link it up with society, the state and the world.

If any suffering was fruitless it was the agony of a hangover; what he suffered now could not expiate suffering of any other kind.

Real christians always forgive before they are asked for forgiveness.

It's never a good time, when you're the president of the United States and your own party is finding lots of different ways to distance themselves from you.

The U.S. and Israel have been slaughtering the Palestinians, just slaughtering them, for years. Robbing them and slaughtering them.

I'd rather die on my feet, than live on my knees.

There is no point in being a responsible member of society, nor is there any point in being an irresponsible member of society. Both are very defined descriptions of selfhood

At my concerts most of the chicks are looking for liberation, they think I'm gonna show 'em how to do it.

We're all human beings, but some of us are more sophisticated at covering our flaws. We're just smart enough to lie to ourselves that everything is OK.

Feeling free inside oneself is being free.

When we are expecting only suffering, the least joy surprises us: Suffering itself becomes the greatest of joys when we seek it as a precious treasure.

I love to snowboard with no cameras: 100 percent.