Even when I was living below the poverty line as a novelist, I was still living better than 99.5% of the human population of the world. But in my little, soft realm of trying to amuse a few dozen middle-class people with my books and articles, I did struggle to survive in my own way.

I always liked those characters in 'True Blood' who could turn into animals. I'd love to be an animal of some kind and run quickly through a forest.

I have very few hobbies. In fact, I have no hobbies.

It's hard to leave New York: this is where my friends are, my parents are. It is so vital. The whole world seems to look to New York.

As a child, I wanted to be an athlete, a professional tennis player or something like that.

I'm actually much more shy and self-conscious than people's perception of me.

The real self and the public self are intertwined, like a tumor around an organ, and you can't cut the tumor or you'll kill the organ, so they live together, until the tumor chokes the organ off - but which self is the tumor?. Or it's like something out of Star Trek. The Borg.