But everything written has style. The list of ingredients on the side of a cornflakes box has style. And everything literary has literary style. And style is integral to a work. How something is told correlates with - more - makes what's being told. A story is its style.

Even things which seem separate and finished are infinitely connected and will infinitely connect. This connection happens as soon as you let it, as soon as you engage - as soon as you even attempt to engage.

I went to the top of Vesuvius and looked in.

You never know if you're a writer. You can't trust it. If you woke up and said, "I'm a writer," it would be gone. You wouldn't see anything for miles - even the dust would be running away.

Do you come to art to be comforted, or do you come to art to be re-skinned?

I want to be bored. But I can't. But I really don't want to be this thing that I'm having to be instead of being bored.

We'd never expect to understand a piece of music on one listen, but we tend to believe we've read a book after reading it just once.