The good thing about writing book is that you can dream while you are awake.

I never could stand being forced to do something I didn't want to do at a time I didn't want to do it. Whenever I was able to do something I liked to do, though, when I wanted to do it, and the way I wanted to do it, I'd give it everything I had.

This is the extent of his knowledge of the sea: it was very big, it was salty, and fish lived there.

So many dreams, so many disappointments, so many promises. And in the end, they all just vanish.

Life is here, death is over there. I am here, not over there.

Writing is fun - at least mostly. I write for four hours every day. After that I go running. As a rule, 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). That's easy to manage.

I wrote my first two long novels and an anthology of short narratives, when I was a manager of my own jazz bar. There was not enough time to write and I didn't know how to write novels. Therefore, I made written collages of aphorisms and rags.