It feels like people talk a lot, in their relationships and in therapy. But my family wasn't like that. My dad wasn't and I wasn't. Things were said, but via the language of action.

I was an only child. And it's very much my temperament. I remember playing with a piece of string in my room for hours. I had never thought about what it would be like to have siblings.

The reason I could fit in with so many different kinds of people was that I had no self. And then the problem is, if you don't have a self, how can you be with other people? Who the hell are you with them?

My dad felt pretty strongly that I know about the basic workings of a plane and so he taught me how to read and set the instruments, as well as the basics of taking off and landing.

I don't think many kids question their surroundings. Everything seems so permanent and inevitable growing up, even chaos.

My natural inclination is to think in scenes. So that's how I write, and the issue for me is usually: what to compress for speed.

There are still things out there in the universe to contemplate and spend our lives chasing.