Maybe that's why people take pictures of themselves, to avoid being described.

Somewhat predictably, I'm much more comfortable in front of an audience - and a big audience is even better - than faced with one stranger. This always seems like a bit of a failing on my part, as a human. I think that's also why I put myself situations where I'm forced to engage in other ways.

Narrative and characters have always interested me. I never tried to alienate an audience. Of course, gradually, I wanted a bigger and bigger space to draw people in, so it's very organic [growth].

That's the artist's job, really: continually setting yourself free, and giving yourself new options and new ways of thinking about things.

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.

In the weeks that followed, we amazed ourselves. Our habits slid apart easily...And our very few intimacies were simply discontinued. Where did they go, those things we did? Were they recycled? Did some new couple in China do them? Were a Swedish man and woman foot to foot at this very moment?

To get anything done, you used to have to brush past, or at least lay eyes on, someone whose reality was totally different from your own. That used to be inevitable. If that goes away because everything's so convenient, everything's brought to you, well, then there goes one of my favorite parts of life, and something that I've gone out of my way to court.