Think of how much we stress about living up to our "potential," and how it creates anxiety and terror in people; in short, stops them from living their life as fully as they might out of fear and self-loathing.

I do write fiction, and I find it more difficult, but also more liberating. On the one hand, you can make up the story, but you have to make up the story.

I have been, earlier in my life, a lazy writer. I'd spend three hours at the gym to avoid writing, or I'd just find other distractions - reading, doing laundry, talking on the phone, etc. But suddenly I was like a laser beam: I was relentlessly focused, sometimes to the detriment of other things.

I think it's more important to concentrate on trying to be, simply, happy. Once you've known deep despair, you feel even more motivated to be as happy as possible. That's how I feel.

I love poetry, but I find it so difficult to write well.

I honestly turned to writing because I didn't know what else to do, and because a friend had gently suggested it.

Although I don't think love is quantitatively measured - in other words, I don't believe that you "don't know love until you have a child," that whole thing - I do believe it is qualitatively different.