"Overall, the anarchy was the most creative of all periods of Japanese culture for in it there appeared the greatest landscape painting, the culmination of the skill of landscape gardening and the arts of flower arrangement, and the No drama."

"No matter what your circumstance, if you provide kids with creative ammunition, they will blast holes into an oppressive reality, and conceive limitless worlds."

"The prophet is always at the mercy of events; nevertheless, I venture to conclude this book with the forecast that at least half the illnesses of mankindwill disappear once our food supplies are raised from fertile soil and consumed in a fresh condition."

"From the beginning, I've always had a knack for catchy melodies. But I went through a period when I was trying to be rock n' roll and have a rock n' roll attitude. I was fighting my nature by trying to play really hard and sing really hard. But at a certain point, I realized that I loved syrupy pop music with tons of harmony."

"Writing is harder than acting. I enjoy acting for just the brevity with which you can be in the experience of doing it. Writing is kind of more satisfying in that you're creating a world and doing something that feels bigger, but it's very time consuming and has a higher threshold for failure."

"Winter passed, suns and moons, and in the heat of summer each tree leaned across the stream and enmeshed its young foliage with the crown of its brother. More summers, more winters, more suns and moons, and the two had grown together, their great trunks fused, the stream parting now to flow round them."