When things are going well, I can't write fast enough to keep up with my mind. Writing walks, speech runs and talk flies. Other times, though, it's like fishing.

People do need a social license to go, "Ha ha ha," and have a good time. It's a strange thing. There's a lot of social ritual around comedy and laughter. It's a bonding experience for groups, but nobody can tell you much about how funny somebody is. Sometimes people just need to be in a group and be laughing together, just like they need to be in a group in watching some really terrifying film.

I've got better things to do than read rubbish about myself.

I'm very drawn to Eastern Europe, so I like a Hungarian writer who wrote in French called Emil Cioran; he was always good for giving me such a stir.

Of course people are angry. Generation upon generation had jobs at steel mills or whatever - things were going on and it looked like it would always be that way. And then there's these cataclysmic changes and people find themselves out on their arse and they're angry and they want answers. But one thing that's for sure is that those answers will not come in the form of Donald J. Trump.

You're talking to a modern, nice, affable German person and they're saying to you something like 'You know, vell, it's a critical time now for Germany within Europe, also globally, economically ve are pretty good, ve have been better. But ve are very vibrant in the theater and arts...' and all the time you'll be listening to this, you're thinking Mmm, yeah, mmm... Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler.

You learn very very quickly that it is mostly about swearing, actually. That's all you're doing, swearing, in a box with wheels.