You imagine a reader and try to keep the reader interested. That's storytelling. You also hope to reward the reader with a sense of a completed design, that somebody is in charge, and that while life is pointless, the book isn't pointless. The author knows where he is going. That's form.

The educational aspect of art shows has become overbearing: some of exhibits can leave you bleary from trying to read the walls. Presumably a piece of art is timeless and it can say something to us. You are taking away the right of art to talk for itself.

I'm always looking for insights into the real Doris Day because I'm stuck with this infatuation and need to explain it to myself.

A cynic is a kind of romantic who has aged.

Try to develop actual work habits, and even though you have a busy life, try to reserve an hour, say - or more - a day to write. Some very good things have been written on an hour a day.

Why does life feel, to us as we experience it, so desperately urgent and so utterly pointless at the same time?

You can never get the smell of smoke out. Like the smell of failure in life.