If in the first act you have a gun hanging on the wall, then in the last act it must fire.

Any idiot can face a crisis; it's this day-to-day living that wears you out.

Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress.

History is a chain of wills attempting to transmit something.

-- Yasushi Inoue

Writing is the work above all other work.

-- Ichiyo Higuchi

Within the motive for crime lies society's contradiction.

-- Seicho Matsumoto

A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

-- Thomas Mann

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.

-- Ernest Hemingway

Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

-- George Orwell