What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you have ever made — of money, time, or energy?

I was not much taken by their poems, but I liked Leconte de Lisle’s translation of Homer, especially his Iliad, which brought me the classical world. I have often felt a great difference between myself and the next generation, those who were twenty in 1950, although it is only a few years, because I had read in my grandfather’s library books that were later less accessible. The next generation was reading Michaux, Prévert, Éluard—twentieth-century authors. I’m glad to have read the Greek classics, and French ones too—writers like Racine and Corneille.

More than 500 children under the age of 18 lost a parent in the Hanshin Earthquake; 88 of them lost both parents and became orphans. I have proposed the establishment of a foundation in order to support the education of these children so that they can sustain their hopes for the future. To that end, I would like to contribute the hundred thousand dollar prize awarded to me today by The Hyatt Foundation towards this new foundation for these young earthquake victims.

The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, people who have been kind enough not to sue me when I took their names for Death Eaters.

Remember, if you sit at your desk for 15 or 20 years, every day, not ­counting weekends, it changes you. It just does. It may not improve your temper, but it fixes something else. It makes you more free.

The desk helps, now that I have it. I’ve stacked piles of books that I love on it to act as talismans. They help, too. The desk makes me feel like I’m going to work, even though work is located in a cramped but bright corner of my living room. […] I used to think of myself as someone with a great deal of discipline, but I lost it in the air somewhere over the Rocky Mountains. Now, instead of discipline, I have a desk, and every day that I sit at it I dig a little deeper.

My training took seven years. I didn’t learn how to make sushi for the first three years. I only got two days off a month, and slept on the restaurant floor. But I loved the job. I’d go to the fish market every morning. I got to open the restaurant and see the customers. I’d watch my mentor making sushi and would copy him under the table, practising with my fingers.