I read a lot of thrillers, especially American crime novels.

Love - true love - is a precious thing. It is painful, uncomfortable, makes fools of us all, but it is what breathes meaning and color and purpose into our lives.

We are who we are, be­cause of those we choose to love and be­cause of those who love us.

I am not a fan of historical fiction that is sloppy in its research or is dishonest about the real history.

Free and fair access to books - to reading - is a right and one we should fight for.

The dead leave their shadows, an echo of the space within which once they lived. They haunt us, never fading or growing older as we do. The loss we grieve is not just their futures but our own.

For when all else is done, on­ly words re­main. Words en­dure.

What we leave behind in this life is the memory of who we were and what we did. An imprint, no more.

Pas a pas, se va luenh. Step by step, we make our way.

There comes always a moment when the desire to act, however ill the cause, is stronger than the wish to listen.

Actually, I can write anywhere - airport lounges, in bed, on a rattling train going north.

There is no right or wrong.There is no weak or strong.There is only you.

He never hears the truth about himself by not wishing to hear it." Pope Alexander

... wore sorrow and anger like a worn-out coat and would not throw it away.

A man I knew who lived upon a smile, And well it fed him; he look'd plump and fair, While rankest venom foam'd through every vein.

I don't know if you can tell, but I grew up watching a lot of television.

On sorrow floats laughter.

I saw a lot of 47 Ronin on the TV, in the films, and I've done Chushingura Gaiden Yotsuya Kaidan [Crest of Betrayal, 1994] directed by Kinji Fukasaku.

Facility is an obstacle to any creativeness. In any art form. You get a nice effect without effort, sometimes by accident, and you're satisfied; but there's nothing substantial underneath.

Turn your habit into a conscious decision.

Look - The moon thumbs through night's book. Finds a lake where nothing is printed. Draws a straight line. That's all it can. That's enough. Thick line. Straight toward you. - Look.