This pain, this dying, this is just normal. This is how life is. In fact, I realize, there never was an earthquake. Life is just this way, broken, and I am crazy for dreaming of something else.

So the recordings were these immersive landscapes, and yet, unlike the performances that almost no one would see, I had a sense that these could live forever. I was just starting to get my head around the democratic aspect of art; I didn't want to make rarefied things that were either alienatingly obscure or elite and art-worldy, so a recording that anyone could buy was a great medium.

I've always been terrified of getting used to something that is actually killing me-a relationship or a job. But in those cases, you can count on a friend to say something. The Internet is different, because all my friends are in the same relationship.

I asked myself if I would kill my parents to save his life, a question I had been posing since I was fifteen. The answer always used to be yes. But in time, all those boys had faded away, and my parents were still there. I was now less and less willing to kill them for anyone; in fact, I worried for their health. In this case, however, I had to say yes. Yes, I would.

The thing I am most interested in is power relations - it is so easy in a relationship like that [of an artist and a gallery manager], to imagine that the other person is living a perfect life.

If you were wise enough to know that this life would consist mostly of letting go of things you wanted, then why not get good at the letting go, rather than the trying to have?

I don't think I'm more of a screenwriter than I am a fiction writer. I'm more of a reader than a film-watcher, so I imagine that I'm not approaching fiction or films in a particularly cinematic way.