A writer decides to follow some ideas and not others for reasons that aren't always clear to him. It's often a matter of intuition.

In this country there is a universal third person, the man we all want to be. Advertising has discovered this man. It uses him to express the possibilities open to the consumer. To consume in America is not to buy; it is to dream. Advertising is the suggestion that the dream of entering the third person singular might possibly be fulfilled.

One of my earliest memories as a reader - I don't know how old I was, quite young - was a poem of his, called "Fog," and I remember the first verse, "The fog comes / on little cat feet".

It was only when I found myself writing things I didn't realise I knew that I said, 'I'm a writer now.'

Let's enjoy the aimless days while we still can.

The future is always a wholeness, a sameness. We're all tall and happy there,' she said. 'This is why the future fails. It always fails. It can never be the cruel happy place we want to make it.

I watch movies occasionally, and I watch documentaries. Virtually nothing else.