I once hit Quentin on the head with my ball and chain.

I think the biggest difficulty is that when I'm here in America, there's a necessity of using English, so I really have a great sense of really wanting to learn, but unfortunately when I head back to Japan, the necessity vanishes and so does my enthusiasm about learning.

Obviously, the difference between a game and actual training is you're using your whole body, so in that sense, maybe not, although maybe something to do with reaction, the speed of reaction, maybe that was of use during the training.

We started with the basics of kicking and punching, then we moved on once we got proficient in that, we moved on to working with the weapons, and from then on working with the wires.

My character is somebody who is smaller in stature and yet who's strong, so to see the fighting situations between people who are not generally thought of being strong is in itself unusual and therefore interesting, I think.

Obviously, a skirt does present certain problems that I had to be aware of. But when it came to the shoot and we were rolling, I didn't really pay it any attention. It wasn't too bad.

I didn't understand the American fascination with the Japanese schoolgirl. No, I don't think I can, really.

Julie Dryfus and I were both afraid of heights and in one scene, I had to be quite high up and I was rather terrified, but Julie was very kind, encouraging me and we got through that together.

I think probably like seeing women fight because we're generally not thought to be strong, especially in the case of this movie.

Without going into too much detail, the end of my major action scene, after the climax of the scene, there was one little change that I suggested regarding the way things should turn out. It was in the detail of the tears of blood.

It was pretty much the way that it was when I first read it, although one exception would be that some ideas that I had were also incorporated into the script.

I loved playing Go Go, because the character's so extreme. And she's pretty close to my real character. Especially the fact that she liked her sword with a lot of accessories.

A movie of mine is going to be released in Japan next year. I play a waitress who's a really regular girl in this movie. The English title isn't decided yet, but in Japanese it's I'll Get on the A Train Sometime.

Up until doing this movie, I hadn't really paid a huge amount of attention to those genres, but after finishing this movie, it really gave me a different sense of appreciation of the way the movies play out.

I certainly look at them very differently now, and enjoy Jackie Chan movies and movies like that.

I once hit Quentin on the head with my ball and chain.

No person, I think, ever saw a herd of buffalo, of which a few were fat and the great majority lean. No person ever saw a flock of birds, of which two or three were swimming in grease, and the others all skin and bone.

News is something that happens that matters to you, which is not most of what we watch on television.

Watch your finances like a hawk.

When I was 26 or 27, I took a year off before I was going to get my Ph.D. in geography and started traveling. And within a month, I said, 'I don't want to be academic. I want to write fiction.' And as soon as I said that - 'I'm going to write fiction' - everything in my life started to make sense.

I like narrative storytelling as being part of a tradition, a folk tradition.

Music has no subject beyond the combinations of notes we hear, for music speaks not only by means of sounds, it speaks nothing but sound.

Big sisters are the crab grass in the lawn of life.

Something crucial about depression ... The smarter you were the worse it was. The sharper your brain the more it cut you up.

If some things don't make you lose your sense of reason, then you have none to lose.

I think to be a successful comic, you have to be exceptionally smart and exceptionally perceptive.

I'd love to do more theatre and acting. I attended a performing arts high school in London, and it would be great to be able to put all of that training to use again.

I'm a performance artist first; I'm a recording artist second.

I've always been a big fan of Rachel McAdams. I saw her for the first time in 'Mean Girls,' then I saw her in 'The Notebook.' I've always wanted a role like 'The Notebook,' this heartfelt love story. I think Rachel's so incredible.

I'm in this wonderful place of life, where everything I'm doing is something I do because I enjoy it.

Sociopaths don't have feelings; they can't.

I love myself and I am a good person.

I often get mistaken for Dumbledore. One wizard is very much like another.

Ethiopia is such a great country, beautiful place.

Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.

The only hope of socialism resides in those who have already brought about in themselves, as far as is possible in the society of today, that union between manual and intellectual labor which characterizes the society we are aiming at.

Film composers are the most prolific music makers on this planet, and most of us are, like, losing our minds if we're doing five or more movies in a year.

People who dream of something bigger and better are good role models.

I was taken to one place by a director, and he bought me a lap dance.

Unless I really loved it and felt really passionate about it, I would just kind of abort the song and start a new one.