Using non-actors has its own rules and really requires that you allow them to do their own thing.

I've often noticed that we are not able to look at what we have in front of us, unless it's inside a frame.

Religion works on some people but not on everyone, because it says, 'Stop thinking and accept what I tell you.' That's not valid for people who want to think and reflect.

Cinema seats make people lazy. They expect to be given all the information. But for me, question marks are the punctuation of life.

A movie is about human beings, about humanity.

In the total darkness, poetry is still there, and it is there for you.

Film is very much a universal and common voice, and we can't limit it to one particular culture.

Good cinema is what we can believe and bad cinema is what we can't believe. What you see and believe in is very much what I'm interested in.

My way of expression is full of complications and mystery because that's my perception of life.

I would be too selfish if I said everyone should see my movies more than once. To say that would mean I'm just marketing my work!

I spend a lot of time doing carpentry. Sometimes there is nothing that gives me the contentment that sawing a piece of wood does.

A novelist can’t be without a kimono and pen!(Shigure)

Love and trust is the way

Living threads more numerous than stars frame the universe of my mind.

Poetry should be common in experience but uncommon in books.

I guess I'm just good at playing repressed individuals. I'm lucky because those are often the roles that catch people's eyes.

However, the difficulties and pleasures of the writing itself are similar for a novel with a historical setting and a novel with a contemporary setting, as far as I'm concerned.

Comedy has always been important in my family. If you got in a good joke at the dinner table, it meant more than almost anything else.

Genius is supposed to be a power of producing excellences which are put of the reach of the rules of art: a power which no precepts can teach, and which no industry can acquire.

Labor with the heart, when the heart is pure and true, is the noblest labor.

The womb is like an altar, it's the place where God continually comes into the world and does what only God can do...create.