New York City is still the art capital - every time I'm in New York, I'm thinking about competition.

My aesthetic sense was formed at a young age by what surrounded me: the narrow residential spaces of Japan and the mental escapes from those spaces that took the forms of manga and anime.

I've been immersed in manga since I was a kid. I grew up with this culture. So I started to think about how to compare manga to contemporary art.

Rather than a big figure, I guess you could say I'm more of an influential minority symbol.

I'm very sad to be compared with Warhol and The Factory, because I have no drugs, you know. We have no drug culture in Japan! Maybe it's because our attitude toward labor is totally different.

The way I formed my studio and how I organize things actually came out of the model of the Japanese animation studio and the manga industry. The manga industry is gigantic in Japan.

Like many other kids, I liked watching anime.

I'm always very interested in breeding. Raising cacti is breeding. My lotus plant collection is breeding. The insects are breeding.

Reading is one of the most common habit among the most successful people.

You know what happened to her, right?

If your gonna drop out of school / tough grades are not your goal / then change your name to Candy and learn to work a pole.

And don’t you say that it is very kind and obliging of him, sir, like Jessamy, because if you don’t like a person, you don’t wish to be obliged to him!

Music is a passion of mine. Im always listening, always learning.

I very much own the fact that I'm a misfit. The Internet makes everyone realize they're screwed up.

What is the use of merely listening to lectures? The real thing is practice.

I've never seen a guy change his position so many times, so fast, on a dime.

I can't understand why Scholes has never won the player of the year award. He should have won it long ago. Maybe it's because he doesn't seek the limelight like some of the other 'stars'.

Groundhog Day is a lot like a rock concert but the people are better behaved and there's a groundhog involved.