I wish I'd been better able to resist the sense of obligation to write some of the poems I did. It's in the nature of commissioned work to be written too much from the side of your mind that knows what it's doing, which dries up the poetry. ↗
What I try to do is to go into a poem - and one writes them, of course, poem by poem - to go into each poem, first of all without having any sense whatsoever of where it's going to end up. ↗
Since I have come to America, I am often asked whether my next novel will be set in America. I don't think it will. I think I will be living in America for some time to come, but while living in America, I would like to write about Japanese society from the outside. ↗
When Ted Williams was here, inducted into the Hall of Fame 37 years ago, he said he must have earned it, because he didn't win it because of his friendship with the writers. I guess in that way, I'm proud to be in this company that way. ↗
We make a contract within ourselves as actors or directors or writers about how much of ourselves we let into projects. You can actually figure out before you work on something how much blood you will have to let emotionally. ↗
