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

I definitely care about how the concept of New York punk was constructed, and why it mattered. But I wasn't gonna do that. Partly because I'm not a great journalist...

It was often this way, life consisted of a series of false beginnings, bluff declarations of arrival to destinations not even glimpsed.

By removing the stories from the morass of things that surround us, I'm hoping to achieve some kind of purer approach to emotional life.

As much as I revere great writing, and am still humbled by it, literary activities are no longer esoteric to me. When I read a great novel - something that I could never have written myself - I'm still looking at it a little bit like a technician.

The past is still visible. The buildings haven't changed, the layout of the streets hasn't changed. So memory is very available to me as I walk around.

It's now expected of me that I will defy expectation, so I really generally seem to be free to write what I want.