My oldest brother was stabbed thirty to forty times and strangled to death with his own belt when I was eight years old. Much of my life has been pockmarked with violence. So I had a natural interest in the topic, along with a strong home-field advantage.

I'll hit anyone who's seriously threatening my life... that's what happened, and that's what sent me to prison.

It was simultaneously refreshing and a bit shocking to see how cavalierly most Aussies toss out slurs and insults about nonwhites.

Homosexuality is genetically hardwired but race and gender are only ideas. OK. Just trying to keep up.

I still partially suffer from the delusion that if you explain things logically and systematically, most people will abandon their emotional prejudices and respond to logic. But I don't suffer from that delusion as wholeheartedly as I did in the past. So if there's a fundamental difference, it's that I've accepted the fact that most imbeciles will never 'get' me and I shouldn't allow myself to get so upset about it.

I'm still an obsessive personality, and I still think I'm right, and I still believe my literary balls hang far lower than nearly anyone else's alive.

I'm more muscular than I was in my younger days. My biceps and shoulders, especially.