"I had never heard of this film—I only saw it recently. It’s truly brilliant. An old couple from a small town in Japan decide to visit their children in Tokyo, who disappointingly have little time to spend with them. It’s a film about the misunderstanding between generations and the end of one’s life. It’s romantic, realistic, and very poignant."

"Every spring, the three younger Makioka sisters don their finest kimonos to stroll beneath the cherry blossoms at Kyoto, a ceremony that seems to encapsulate the ritualized elegance of their lives and their deep bonds of affection, both of which are threatened by the family’s declining fortunes and a Japan that is swiftly changing on the eve of World War II."

"I don’t know if you know this but I’ve found that if you sat at a table with eight or nine of the worlds best chefs — from France, Brazil, America, wherever — and you asked them where they’d choose if they had to eat in one, and only one country, for the rest of their lives, they would ALL of them pick Japan without hesitation. We both know why."

"That one was really a brief summing up of the concept of Ziggy and the Spiders, but kind of done in a futuristic type of way. I was really into King Crimson at the time and I loved the drummer. He used to play things, strange drum rolls at strange places in the song. I used to think it was a bit weird, but then I learned how to do it, and I thought that would really work for this song. So, I definitely took a bit of inspiration from King Crimson for my playing on that one. And it worked! It kind of left it hanging at certain places and didn't make it sound like a 'normal' rock song. That one always went down amazing live. People would be waiting and waiting for that song. Like when we were in Japan and he would sing that line 'like some cat from Japan' and the place would just go berserk! Absolutely mental."