I get up between 6:30 and 8 am. I used to make a cup of coffee first thing, but now I have warm water with a bit of lemon juice in it. I've cut down on things as I was getting fat.

I read all the time so it's difficult to say who my all-time favourites are. One is George Orwell, because he makes political writing so simple a child could understand it.

I've done everything. All of it. You think it, I've done it. All the things you never dared, all the things you dream about, all the things you were curious about and then forgot because you knew you never would. I did 'em, I did 'em yesterday while you were still in bed. What about you? When's it gonna be your turn?

It's mind control, see. You have to go to school, get those exams, get to university or college, get a job, get married, don't miss the boat, do it now or you'll shoot your life down the drain. Yeah. They got you as soon as you were born. They never risked a second of your life. When you have kids they'll be telling them they have to wear a plastic mask and put a penny in the slot about their nose before they can breathe in.

Sometimes maybe you need an experience. The experience can be a person or it can be a drug. The experience opens a door that was there all the time but you never saw it. Or maybe it blasts you into outer space...All that negative stuff. All the pain...It just floted away from me, I just floated away from it...up and away.

He'd come back, all open and helpless, and I suppose that's what won her around in the end. But it was so sad, because it was being himself that he found so difficult to cope with.

In terms of sheer writing I might have done most of my work by 11. If you get up at 6:30 or 7 you can get a huge amount done by 11 and have the rest of the day off if you want to, though I have to check my accumulating e-mails. No one ever sends me horrible e-mails. Although some of my books are supposed to be hated, no one ever tells me.