I only have two rules for my newly born daughter: she will dress well and never have sex.

I am inspired by the appearance of a bohemian of the new millennium.

I can have incredible self-discipline. But see, I think it's obviously a form of stupidity.

And if you say a word about this over the radio, the next wings you see will belong to the flies buzzing over your rotting corpse.

I'm a little bit of a fabric lunatic.

My father could be very distancing. My clearest memory is of him squatting, watering plants for hours and hours at a time, completely silent. He was very self-contained; my mother was more outgoing and chatty and social. I'm certainly more like her.

All you have is the writer's imagination. You have a very limited time to take this imaginary person and bring the details of their life, as you perceive them, to life. You attempt to do to that as fully and as vibrantly as you can. It's depressing to read how much you've failed. And it's not even particularly instructive or necessary to read how you succeeded because in the end don't you have to judge that?