He felt full of a dense and sour substance that was blocking his chest, and it wasn't grief. After all those years, life now seemed like no more than a trap, a maze, not even a maze, just a room that was all walls, no door.

As a child, I never wanted my parents to be unhappy, which meant that I would always contemplate what would make them happy.

I think that becoming a parent kind of made me try to be more responsible. And it made me much more stressful.

I think that any authentic feeling one has of life should be a feeling of defeat. It's a losing game. You're going to die. Civilization is going to end. Our society is in decline, and we should feel OK about it because Roman society was in decline and before it the Assyrian one was, and they disappeared off this earth and we will disappear too.

The amazing thing about an artistic collaboration is that it is as intense and intimate as a romantic one. Sometimes even more so.

I don't have Facebook or Twitter accounts yet. Being a compulsive storyteller, I always make up for myself discouraging stories about how such accounts will get me into embarrassing and time-consuming situations.

What you experience in the army, aged 18 to 21, is what you take through all your life. You cross invisible lines: you shoot someone, get shot, break into people's houses. It's naive to think you won't carry anything into your life.