In ways I don't entirely have the words for an experience, thought or a lesson isn't real for me until I've written down.

There's a point at which writing a book, or a long article, begins to feel like mental labor, and it's too painful to connect in the world in any real way mid-process. The only way to survive is to write until it is all said and done.

How you see a country depends on whether you are driving through it, or live in it. How you see a country depends on whether or not you can leave it, if you have to.

I love my mother so much, because I see the whole of her.

I always knew mum loved me - tough, look-after-yourself love, as if she knew she wouldn't always be there.

I listen mostly to classical music.

In general, I almost always watch foreign films.