The difference between the world of pictures and the world of printed matter is extraordinary and hard to define. A picture is like the masses: a multitude of impressions. A book on the other hand, with its linear advance of words and characters seems to be connected to individual identity.

Once you've seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn.

I think more than writers, the major influences on me have been European movies, jazz, and Abstract Expressionism.

I was never either pro-culture or counter-culture. I was in a kind of middle state.

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".

We need time to lose interest in things.

For most people, there are only two places in the world. Where they live and their TV set. If a thing happens on television, we have every right to find it fascinating, whatever it is.