Impossible to spend sleepless nights and accomplish anything: if, in my youth, my parents had not financed my insomnias, I should surely have killed myself.

Philosophy: Impersonal anxiety; refuge among anemic ideas.

I saw that philosophy had no power to make my life more bearable. Thus I lost my belief in philosophy.

Intelligence flourishes only in the ages when belief withers.

You know, the media and politicians are always gonna be in a bit of tension with one another and probably most of the time that's healthy and indeed even creative. But it's where - it's really when news organisations are used as kind of instruments of politics that it gets tricky.

It seems to be impossible to hold a credible election without reforming the electoral system.

I noticed that democracy was broken and tried to work on fixing that in Japan. Then I realized that it was broken all over the place and decided to work on that too.

Don't get married until you're certain that you're marrying the right girl. How did I know my wife was the one? I'd seen her for a couple of months. I liked her. She was a very creative person and she had a very good grip on politics and business.