Natsuo Kirino

“A crime is like a crack in reality, and it is the author's role to explore those cracks. As a writer, I like to see how they impinge on people.”

“If people can't stand being alone, they have no choice but to die”

“I first thought about becoming a writer after the age of 30, which is rather late, I'd say. In my 20s, I wasn't especially good at anything, and I didn't have a lot of experiences. I was just a young woman without a good job.”

“The pain of being treated like a mere object. And a sense that this pain would turn into pleasure.”

“I don't know if foreigners will take to my novels or not. It may be that my books appeal only to a particular gender or age group rather than convey a more universal appeal.”

“The thing I don't like about detective stories is looking for criminals.”

“Friends are a weird thing. It seems like they know all about you, but then they don’t understand you at all.”

“It's a very confusing experience living as a woman in Japan. If your husband is white-collar, the wife is blue. Even if you marry a person of status, the wife inevitably remains a rung below.”

“One of my books, 'Rain Falling on My Face,' earned me the 39th Edogawa Ranpo prize. It's a very prestigious literary prize in Japan, mostly for mysteries and thrillers.”

“'Out' was my real breakthrough, the novel that became a hit in Japan and sold a lot of books, so it was sort of an obvious choice for being the first book to be translated into English.”

“In order to induce the process of decay, water is necessary. I think that, in the case of women, men are the water.”

“I started writing juvenile novels around 1985. I never really thought of it as a career, but more as a way to make a living.”

“I'm happy to be told that I am beautiful, but I don't gain anything from that.”

“If you say I hide things because I'm shy, that can't be right. I've finally realized it's for a different reason-- that I don't want to see the darkness that lies in my heart”

“For research, I like to go to the location of the places in the novels. The first thing that I do is involve my senses: I notice the smells; I open the trash cans and look at what people have thrown away.”

“In reality of everyday occurrences I've had to submit to people in order not to lose them. It's less the submission that bothers me, I guess, than how it makes my life miserable. And what happens if I can't forgive myself for making that choice? And what if, in order to keep on living, I have to continue to accept myself? What am I supposed to do? Conclusion: It'd be best if I'm destroyed. The best thing is for me just to vanish.”

“You know," she murmured, "we're all heading straight to hell.""Yes," said Masako, giving her a bleak look. "It's like riding downhill with no brakes.""You mean, there's no way to stop?" "No, you stop all right - when you crash.”

“In Japan, full-time homemakers have no economic power of their own, and they socially lead a faceless, anonymous existence.”