I realize that we all think we might be terrible people. But we only reveal this before we ask someone to love us. It is a kind of undressing.

And why had Deb's last boyfriend dumped her? I dumped him. Maybe you didn't French-kiss him enough. I promise you that wasn't it. Tell me how many times a day you kissed, and I'll say if it was enough. Four hundred. Not enough.

A more normal, mature way to think about it [my work] would be, Oh, I work on multiple projects at once and they overlap, but the actual psychology of it is a lot more self-abusing.

Since I started making art, I've always had some kind of project that was really about and for other people, because I think I just need that balance to feel sane myself — you know?

Writing a novel was like I had some Play-Doh to work with and could just keep working with it - doing a million drafts and things changing radically and characters appearing and disappearing and solving mysteries: Why is this thing here? Should I just take that away? And then realizing, no, that is there, in fact, because that is the key to this. I love that sort of detective work, keeping the faith alive until all the questions have been sleuthed out.

I laughed and said, Life is easy. What I meant was, Life is easy with you here, and when you leave, it will be hard again.

My earliest memory is aged three, seeing sunlight on water and feeling it was really magical.