Mostly I have to try to censor myself so as not to write things that will hurt other people, or that will go too far.

I don't laugh that much, but I do like humorous books, and I like to entertain readers that way.

I certainly want to portray the importance of friendship. I had noticed in movies and TV shows that friends often treated one another terribly, and my friends, the few I have, are never cruel to me or unkind, so I wanted to convey that.

Something has happened where you almost never grow up in America. Maybe it's the greater wealth.

I don't really recognise success. I don't see myself as on an upwardly mobile trajectory. I see myself as on the edge of a cliff about to fall off.

One last thing on objectives - I like to make things, create things, so that's probably been the primary objective all along, even before the ego objective - to make. To record. But why record... that gets back to the ego, a little. Oh, well. Making is good. I like to make things.

No one I interact with - except maybe for family and strangers at the Russian baths and other weird places I may go to - is just friends or lovers with me: they also know something of my writing and this distorts their take on me.