The most dangerous creature here would have to be me. So maybe I'm just scared of my own shadow.

Some people think literature is high culture and that it should only have a small readership. I don't think so... I have to compete with popular culture, including TV, magazines, movies and video games.

Far away, I could hear them lapping up my brains. Like Macbeth's witches, the three lithe cats surrounded my broken head, slurping up that thick soup inside. The tips of their rough tongues licked the soft folds of my mind. And with each lick my consciousness flickered like a flame and faded away.

I closed my own jazz bar so I could be a man who can write novels as I like. I was pleased about that. This pleasure was connected to the pleasure of writing.

While they're still alive, people can become ghosts.

Life's no piece of cake, mind you, but the recipe's my own to fool with.

But what seems like a reasonable distance to one person might feel too far to somebody else.