Rather than a big figure, I guess you could say I'm more of an influential minority symbol.

My aesthetic sense was formed at a young age by what surrounded me: the narrow residential spaces of Japan and the mental escapes from those spaces that took the forms of manga and anime.

I've been immersed in manga since I was a kid. I grew up with this culture. So I started to think about how to compare manga to contemporary art.

I'm very sad to be compared with Warhol and The Factory, because I have no drugs, you know. We have no drug culture in Japan! Maybe it's because our attitude toward labor is totally different.

The way I formed my studio and how I organize things actually came out of the model of the Japanese animation studio and the manga industry. The manga industry is gigantic in Japan.

New York City is still the art capital - every time I'm in New York, I'm thinking about competition.

Like many other kids, I liked watching anime.

I'm always very interested in breeding. Raising cacti is breeding. My lotus plant collection is breeding. The insects are breeding.

College was at the heart of his sentimental imagination.

The only thing grief has taught me is to know how shallow it is.

Verily, a man without fear is either dead or happy to die.

There is no greater power than the power of love

The surest way to reveal one's character is not through adversity but by giving them power.

There is no one insignificant in the purposes of God.

Hello,Pepper. It´s been a while," I said. "The last time we met up, you tried to kidnap me, isn´t that right?" Nora (p.303)

Words indeed are but the signs and counters of knowledge, and their currency should be strictly regulated by the capital which they represent.

There's a lot of ignorance about how long it takes to write a novel. There's a lot of ignorance about how long a novel is in your head before you start to write it.