“We get strength and encouragement from watching children.”

The winds of time eventually turn them into the tools of industrial civillisation. It’s never unscathed.

First: don’t panic! Second: don’t panic! And third: did I mention not to panic?!

There are so many things we can’t do anything about if we think about generalities

I wanted to convey the message to children that this life is worth living.

Yet, even amidst the hatred and carnage, life is still worth living. It is possible for wonderful encounters and beautiful things to exist.

There are all kinds of values within the films but I don’t make message films.

I find it pointless sitting in my house not working, though I like to go on extended vacations from time to time.

Humans have both the urge to create and destroy.

Problems begin the moment we’re born. We’re born with infinite possibilities, only to give up on one after another. To choose one thing means to give up another. That’s inevitable. But what can you do? That’s what it is to live.

When I start creating a villain, I start liking the villain and so the villain is not really evil.

People in Japan have experienced many tsunamis and various earthquakes throughout the ages.

The love of weaponry is often a manifestation of infantile traits in an adult.

In the middle of hatred and killings, there are things worth living for.

Since I am a person who starts work without clear knowledge of a storyline, every single scene is a pivotal scene.

You may not like what’s happening, but just accept it, and let’s try to live together.

My process is thinking, thinking and thinking – thinking about my stories for a long time.

I understood somehow my mother’s frustration. And that it was no good not only for her, but for her children or her husband, that she didn’t have a real use of her ability.

Today the problem that has no name is how to juggle work, love, home and children.

Every disease is a musical problem; every cure is a musical solution.

There is absolutely no evidence that it is harmful to children if their mother’s health, well-being and autonomy and control of her own destiny is maximized by work outside the home.

We can no longer ignore that voice within women that says: ‘I want something more than my husband and my children and my home.’

But somewhere within each of us, buried at varying depths depending on the age and degree of neglect or abuse, shame or coercion we endured, there is a resistant, daydreaming, rebellious, creative, unique child — a true self who is waiting.

By the year 2000 we will, I hope, raise our children to believe in human potential, not God.

Housewives are dependent creatures who are still children, parasites.