That's one of the great sadnesses of any life - knowing what you know now and then remembering what you did not know then.

The trouble with all of us is we are where we shouldn't be.

When I write my novels I don't really have a huge plan beforehand; I don't have the whole plot and architecture, so the story is sort of discovered as I write it.

So we came to understand that small and important thing, that our lives could be large with interesting strangers who would pass us without any personal involvement.

But we were interested in how our lives could mean something to the past. We sailed into the past.

...the heart is an organ of fire.

I kind of was shoveled onto a boat at 11 and went to England. I didn't have any parent watching over me. It was very free and may have been a bit of a scary time for me, but I really don't remember much about the voyage apart from playing ping-pong a lot with a couple friends.