[I spent] much of my time reminding Matt Groening that I really need to be a head in a jar on Futurama.

And so there is magic.

What's it like then?" asked Old Bailey. "Being dead?" The marquis sighed. And then he twisted his lips up into a smile, and with a glitter of his old self, he replied, "Live long enough, Old Bailey, and you can find out for yourself.

I was a normal child. Which is to say, I was selfish and I was not entirely convinced of the existence of things that were not me, and I was certain, rock-solid, unshakeably certain, that I was the most important thing in creation. There was nothing that was more important to me than I was.

I liked myths. They weren't adult stories and they weren't children stories. They were better than that. They just were. Adult stories never made sense, and they were slow to start. They made me feel like there were secrets, Masonic, mythic secrets, to adulthood. Why didn't adults want to read about Narnia, about secret islands and smugglers and dangerous fairies?

Children, as I have said, use back ways and hidden paths, while adults take roads and official paths.

Going off the grid is always good for me. It's the way that I've started books and finished books and gotten myself out of deadline dooms and things.