We should like to have some towering geniuses to reveal us to ourselves in colour and fire but of course they would have to fit into the pattern of our society and be able to take orders from sound administrative types.

In the 18th century James Hargreaves invented the Spinning Jenny and Richard Arkwright pioneered the water-propelled spinning frame which led to the mass production of cotton. This was truly revolutionary. The cotton manufacturers created a whole new class of people - the urban proletariat. The structure of society itself would never be the same.

I for one would think both about how far we have come as a country and how much further we need to go to erase racism and discrimination from our society.

Society has to change but the political powers we have at the moment are not enough to effect this change. The whole democratic system would have to be rethought.

As I get older I think contrary to modern assumption but in line with the old Lerner and Lowe song that it would actually benefit both them and society if - to quote Professor Higgins - a woman could be more like a man.

As far as a truly radical conscience you have to take it as part of a larger thing that it was sort of historical inevitability that with the coming of a leaguer society people would start to use drugs a lot more then they had before.

Every genuine boy is a rebel and an anarch. If he were allowed to develop according to his own instincts his own inclinations society would undergo such a radical transformation as to make the adult revolutionary cower and cringe.

Since I have come to America I am often asked whether my next novel will be set in America. I don't think it will. I think I will be living in America for some time to come but while living in America I would like to write about Japanese society from the outside.

I would argue that we have a generation of young people particularly minorities who are no longer putting up with the kinds of things their parents put up with. They're much more self-confident. It's no longer acceptable to make fun of people because of race or sex. But it has always been present in American society.

If people did not compliment one another there would be little society.