Significant anniversaries are solemnly commemorated - Japan's attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, for example.

"I like the relaxed way in which the Japanese approach religion. I think of myself as basically a moral person, but I'm definitely not religious, and I'm very tired of the preachiness and obsession with other people's behavior characteristic of many religious people in the United States. As far as I could tell, there's nothing preachy about Buddhism. I was in a lot of temples, and I still don't know what Buddhists believe, except that at one point Kunio said 'If you do bad things, you will be reborn as an ox.'

My Christmas present to myself each year is to see how much air travel can open up the world and take me to places as far from sheltered California and Japan as possible.

India and Japan should develop a complementary relationship in information technology.

Working in Hollywood it's clear the more money you have the more technology you can get. So you can build a whole Japanese set. Only in Hollywood!

With millions of family wage manufacturing jobs lost since 2001 we need an energy bill that takes bold action to tap into American ingenuity in order to lead the world in new clean energy technology rather than playing catch-up to the Japanese Danish and Germans.

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

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.

English is necessary as at present original works of science are in English. I believe that in two decades times original works of science will start coming out in our languages. Then we can move over like the Japanese.

I received from my experience in Japan an incredible sense of respect for the art of creating not just the creative product. We're all about the product. To me the process was also an incredibly important aspect of the total form.

You can find academic and industrial groups doing some relevant work but there isn't a focus on building complex molecular systems. In that respect Japan is first Europe is second and we're third.

I'd had a relationship with a French girl a Japanese girl an American girl a Filippina and she was there all the time - a Lancashire girl. I thought: 'It's a Lancashire girl I was looking for. Why didn't I realize it?'

For decades Japan has been a friend and reliable trading partner with the United States and I anticipate that relationship will prosper.

But in Japanese there's actually not much of a relationship between the music and the words.

Many Japanese painters and calligraphers would change their names intentionally to keep their relationship to the art always fresh. This way others' expectations can be avoided.

As I grew up I was continually to suffer hardships in different realms of life - in my family in my relationship to Japanese society and in my way of living at large in the latter half of the twentieth century.

To protect people's lives and keep our children safe we must implement public-works spending and do so proudly. If possible I'd like to see the Bank of Japan purchase all of the construction bonds that we need to issue to cover the cost. That would also forcefully circulate money in the market. That would be positive for the economy too.

I've realized the extraordinary power of sports to heal unite and inspire. I believe the Olympics will serve as the ultimate platform to provide positive changes and I hope to inspire all of Japan through my strong showing there.

And they said if we help with the crisis they would do a lot of positive acts. After we helped in those crises they showed negative acts and the Japanese and Turks were ashamed.

I often imagine that the longer he studies English literature the more the Japanese student must be astonished at the extraordinary predominance given to the passion of love both in fiction and in poetry.

It is true that short forms of poetry have been cultivated in the Far East more than in modern Europe but in all European literature short forms of poetry are to be found - indeed quite as short as anything in Japanese.

Perhaps there is an idea among Japanese students that one general difference between Japanese and Western poetry is that the former cultivates short forms and the latter longer ones gut this is only in part true.

The subject of Finnish poetry ought to have a special interest for the Japanese student if only for the reason that Finnish poetry comes more closely in many respects to Japanese poetry than any other form of Western poetry.

I did not have a very literary background. I came to poetry from the sciences and mathematics and also through an interest in Japanese and Chinese poetry in translation.