“I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.”

“If one has not read the newspapers for some months and then reads them all together, one sees, as one never saw before, how much time is wasted with this kind of literature.”

“One reason that cats are happier than people is that they have no newspapers.”

“I read Naoko's letter again and again, and each time I read it I would be filled with the same unbearable sadness I used to feel whenever Naoko stared into my eyes. I had no way to deal with it, no place I could take it to or hide it away. Like the wind passing over my body, it had neither shape nor weight, nor could I wrap myself in it.”

“I hope I am not too old to take it up seriously, nor too stupid about machines to qualify as a commercial pilot. I do not feel like spending the rest of my life writing books that no one will read. It is not as though I wanted to write them. *1937”

“I read the newspaper avidly.It is my one form of continuous fiction.”