I never miss L.A. because I'm there enough.

To write more from memory and to be more creative - I think - because I am still writing about Los Angeles but I can't walk out my door and immediately drive to places I am writing about. So I think it has been a very good change for me after 11 books to start writing this way.

How I work is that I write a story I'd like to read. Then you fly to Paris or Sydney and the interviewers talk about the greater significance of your work.

I think the only boundaries are individual and personal. A writer should be free to write about anything he or she wants to, including the twin towers. I have made small references to 9/11 in my past two books.

I would change very little because I have been very, very fortunate. A lot of things fell into place for me simply by happenstance. When that happens you don't really want to change anything, even if you could. Editorially my regrets are few and for the most part minor. I look back on my first published book and think I held on to it too long, babied it too long.

I view people two ways. They're either eye-for-an-eye people or they are turn-the-cheek people.

As a bassist he could never really be a sideman. He was always the anchor. He drove the beat. even if it was behind Miles Davis'a horn.