I prefer old books and find them more relevant. I dislike new books. It's like drinking wine that's not ready.

I just noticed recently that in one book after another I seem to find an excuse to find some character who, to put it idiotically simply, is allowed to talk crazy.

But the day I can't shrug off a twinge of self-pity, is the day I'm washed up for keeps.

I'm not too embarrassed to say I'm the definition of the target audience. This is my generation, the one of exalting music in album form.

My inner chemistry had been hijacked by a mad scientist, who poured the fizzy, volatile contents of my heart from a test tube marked SOBER REALITY into another labeled SUNNY DELUSION, and back again, faster and faster, until the floor of my life was slick with spillage.

My writing life is pretty simple - I try to work every day, almost always in the mornings - and I can only write fiction effectively for about three or at the most four hours. No big mysteries, I just sit down and try to advance the cause a little bit every day.

Writing is a private discipline, in a field of companions.