In foreign countries, when people see what Donald Trump is saying on Twitter since the election and seeing what he's saying in these calls with foreign leaders, they take everything very seriously and they take everything very literally.

I don't like my books being defined by their "about"-ness. So now the subtitle has just become a kind of strap-line on the cover.

I've never really liked L.A., because of its sprawl.

All sorts of things can keep one awake. But as you get older - this is what the stroke thing really brought home to me - this thing that I never paid attention to: my brain. I've always been conscious that, of course, after a night of getting stoned, my head would feel foggy; if I got drunk the night before I'd be hungover. But that was the extent of my concern about my brain. And then with the stroke thing, it made me realize, "God! That's my main source of income." So it relates actually to your other question about growing old.

Like most writers I spend a lot of my time sort of thinking, "It's such agony, I can't do it."

In my 30s I used to go to the gym even though I hated it. The purpose of going to the gym was to postpone the day when I would stop going. That's what writing is to me: a way of postponing the day when I won't do it any more, the day when I will sink into a depression so profound it will be indistinguishable from perfect bliss.

One's happiness is very largely a question of state of mind rather than the world you are looking at.