One of the scary things is that, when you're a kid, you look at your dad as the man who has no fear. When you're an adult, you realize your father had fear, and that you have it, too.

Privacy is something I have come to respect. I think when I was younger I wanted to tell everybody everything, because I thought I was so damn interesting. Then I heard the snoring.

Obviously people's feelings are going to get hurt when you use certain words, but you can't outlaw words. They're really the history of our culture. They tell you what's going on. When you make words politically incorrect you're taking all the poetry out of the language. I'm pro anybody living their lives the way they want to live, sexually and otherwise; and I'm anti any kind of language repression.

It's always like you write a poem when you can't really say what you're trying to say.

I will read biographies or autobiographies while I'm writing, but mostly I put books in a to-read queue, like Rachel Cusk's new novel, "Outline."

Most journalists expect me to answer all their questions about aliens and spaceships.

Fame does lead to money, which I don't have a close relationship with. I'm the kind of guy who never sees the money - it all goes somewhere else. I don't understand it, I don't like to deal with it. I have a fear of not having it, because I grew up without it.