I was a child actor, so when I started filming when I was five years old, it was a long time ago.

None of us knows how long he shall live or when his time will come. But soon, all that will be left of our brief lives is the pride our children feel when they speak our names.

I've been wearing kimono for several years, and armor.

It's a Samurai story [47 ronin], so if we change too much Japanese audiences will have strong against feelings to the film. It's not good.

A lot of country making films in English, but in Japan we are very shy to speak English.

It's very difficult to introduce the world to our culture.

I believe, the Japanese film industry must be open.

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.

This is almost the most famous story The last samurai - Samurai story - in Japan.

I've done Last Samurai in Japan, in LA, in New Zealand. Even in Japan it is very hard to shoot, because there's been so many changes. Only around a temple can we shoot.

This is a good thing, mixing culture to make something new, something no one has ever seen. This is kind of a new history.

I had been able to break the curse myself. I'd had to have reason enough, love enough to do it, to find the will and the strength.

Fame is like drifting clouds, transient and ephemeral. Memory is forever.

The ideas associated with the problems of the development of science, as far as I can see by looking around me, are not of the kind that everyone appreciates.

Normally, I have a lot of alpha readers on my books. These are people that, once I finish a novel, I let them look at it and give me a reader response.

The inbox is the perfect delivery system of other people's priorities.

When one lover suffered from a broken heart, no matter how badly the other wanted to help, she couldn't be the one to heal it.

Give dysgenic groups [people with 'bad genes'] in our population their choice of segregation or [compulsory] sterilization.

When the sun sets beautifully, other beauties rise. Nature is a theatre; when one great player leaves the scene, another great player immediately enters. The play always continues excellently.

Fiction is to the grown man what play is to the child; it is there that he changes the atmosphere and tenor of his life.

All those who are unhappy in the world are so as a result of their desire for their own happiness. All those who are happy in the world are so as a result of their desire for the happiness of others.