In the '80s, the world I was living in wasn't this world of consumption. There wasn't that much to buy, really. Actually I'm still struck by that. There's not an awful lot of stuff I want. Somebody quotes Diogenes, who's walking around saying, "How many things there are in the marketplace of which Diogenes has no need." I always feel that. Except of course when you're living in Venice, California and you see all these lovely houses!
Geoff DyerForeign governments are going to be poring through all these Donald Trump tweets looking for - to try and discern what it means for foreign policy.
Geoff DyerIn 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.
Geoff DyerIf Donald Trump thinks that just by being unpredictable that somehow he can have an impact, but not necessarily commit himself to certain things, that's not the way it is going to be read in foreign capitals. Foreign governments are going to take these things very literally and very directly.
Geoff DyerHave more than one idea on the go at any one time. If it's a choice between writing a book and doing nothing I will always choose the latter. It's only if I have an idea for two books that I choose one rather than the other. I ยญalways have to feel that I'm bunking off from something.
Geoff DyerBeware of clichรฉs. Not just the ยญclichรฉs that Martin Amis is at war with. There are clichรฉs of response as well as expression. There are clichรฉs of observation and of thought - even of conception. Many novels, even quite a few adequately written ones, are ยญclichรฉs of form which conform to clichรฉs of expectation.
Geoff DyerI'd have no rituals, but I'm a person of compulsive habit. That's just some awful residue of a ritual. And one of the reasons for that is my living this life, which is otherwise so free of obligations. It's not at all unusual for anybody who's independently employed to crave a way of living whereby they create the structures without which their lives would otherwise start slopping around all over the place.
Geoff Dyer