"Sometimes I feel like I'm a caretaker of a museum, a huge empty museum where no one ever comes."

"I didn't read so much Japanese literature. Because my father was a teacher of Japanese literature, I just wanted to do something else."

"The most important thing we learn at school is the fact that the most important things can't be learned at school."

"Team sports aren't my thing. I find it easier to pick something up if I can do it at my own speed. And you don't need a partner to go running, you don't need a particular place, like in tennis, just a pair of trainers."

"At the very end of a book I can manage to work for longer stretches, but mostly, making stuff up for three hours, that's enough. I can't do any more. At the end of the day I might tinker with my morning's work and maybe write some again. But I think three hours is fine."

"What has happened to the good old-fashioned travel agent? I want to go to a really posh travel agent and have them organise everything for me. I don't want to do things on the Internet."

"Twasn't me, 'twas the Lord! I always told Him, 'I trust to you. I don't know where to go or what to do, but I expect You to lead me,' an' He always did."

"I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance."