People striving for approval from others become phony.

You should seek approval from yourself.

If I'm in a slump, I ask myself for advice.

I feel like I should be more in touch with the nuances of this game.

I've made far too many mistakes. That's the way I feel.

Many people have this image of me. For a long time, I cared about that.

Personally, I don't like the term 'success.' It's too arbitrary and too relative a thing. It's usually someone else's definition, not yours.

The Japanese have a strong tendency to suppress their own feelings. That's the Japanese character. They kill their own emotions.

When people get placed upon a pedestal - when they start chasing after that person on the pedestal - they become mannequin-like.

I heard that in the United States the level of baseball was the highest in the world. So it was only natural that I would want to go there, as a baseball player.

The more that Japanese players go to the big leagues to play and succeed, the more that will serve to inspire young kids in Japan to want to become baseball players when they grow up.