A lot of writers and artists are like chefs who eat their own cooking in the kitchen and then deliver an empty plate with assurances that it's great. Whereas the chef makes cake and sometimes tastes it with a finger, but that's it - the rest is for the people.

I found with poetry that I couldn't keep it up. I was too vulnerable. Maybe I was too aware of the audience. And I had impossibly high standards that I could never approach. So there was always a sense of being a failure, and of being vulnerable.

By this point I have a fairly high degree of confidence in my judgment, in that I don't doubt my sanity; or, even if I do, I don't have to be reassured.

My problem with political art is not that it's bad art necessarily, but that it is terrible politics. We're talking about a closeted person with minimum contact with reality who has trouble tying his f**king shoes! And he's supposed to be political? A bus driver has a better perspective on things. Artists are completely indulgent.

A lot of writers and artists are like chefs who eat their own cooking in the kitchen and then deliver an empty plate with assurances that it's great. Whereas the chef makes cake and sometimes tastes it with a finger, but that's it - the rest is for the people.

The idea of going to school to be an art critic is a very crazy idea. I educated myself in public, which is a very painful way to learn - by writing and then discovering that I don't know what the f**k I'm talking about. But you remember the lessons vividly.

There is a sensuousness to language, there's a pace to it. There's a deliciousness to it. I do have pleasure when I'm writing. I mean, I'm aware of pleasure. And sometimes I make myself laugh, with a joke or something; or I feel gleeful. But that's just momentary. And then it's about how to make it work. Your medium has to be alive to you, no matter what you do.