Bringing this thread back to post a very informative and honest interview to fans who are (still) interested to know more about Tatsuki. It was published by
News Post Seven on May 18th 2014 and it has two parts. I will post the first part and then the second if you'd like to read it.
"Both my life and my performances are inspired by books," Machida says. In this interview, we highlighted the relationship between books, figure skating and Tatsuki Machida.
Part 1: The chemistry of the word "timshel"
How many people in Japan were aware of the word "timshel" before the Sochi Olympics? It became known thanks to Machida, who revealed this was the theme of his short program East Of Eden. "Timshel” is a word from masterpiece novel written by Steinbeck and it led Machida to the Sochi Olympics.
"It’s a word that gives people possibilities. It goes beyond time, races and religions and it’s mentioned in the book. That is why I thought it was the appropriate theme for me to perform at the Olympics, which was the supreme stage for me. And I think this word will also support me later in life."
"Timshel" is a Hebrew word which can be translated as "thou mayest" in English. Machida has his own interpretation of this word.
"I’ve coincidentally read the book two years before Sochi. They called me the 6th Japanese guy back then and nobody, including myself, imagined that I would be able to go to the Olympics. But I found the word "timshel" and I felt a certain chemistry between the word and myself. I thought maybe if I worked hard enough I would be able to grasp the light. So I started to shake myself up."
From then on, his unexpected rise started to happen. People began to pay attention to his words and unique character, as well as his satisfactory results in competitions. But it seems that the real Machida is a bit different from the one we see in interviews...
"It’s really difficult to change yourself. Even though one day I would make decisions, the next day I would lose my strength. But to go to Sochi, I knew I had to change so I wrote my goals on paper, put them on my door, and read them out loud to myself every day. I started boasting about myself on purpose, so that I would keep winning. There’s a certain psychological warfare in figure skating so I kind of used it to control the advance of my rivals.
"Sometimes when I told the media 'I will win for sure’ or 'I don’t see myself losing’ I regretted it and got into bad moods, but I had to do it and I knew that. In reality I’m the type of person who does the work before the talk but I started talking before working so that I wouldn't be able to run away. I was acting like the ideal person I wanted to be. I realized I was masking my real character but as I was acting it felt like it had really become a part of myself. I do want to go back and be the guy who did the work before the talk though (laughs)."
You can see his "to do" list he put on his door
here in this video. The paper says something in the lines of: "to win Rostelecom, to medal at the Grand Prix Final, to win the National Championship, to make it to the Sochi Olympics".
However, it is still a very considerate gesture by the TV shows for Tatsuki's fans like us. Hail to the 3M of Japan! 
But on the plus side, he medalled at Worlds, which is more difficult than either.
