I hadn't played any music since freshman year of college, more than thirty years ago, so I had to relearn everything. I started writing songs. Some were dance and trance songs (I listen to them a lot while I'm writing), and some were love songs, because that after all is what music is about - dancing and trancing and love and love's setbacks.

When I first wanted to be a writer, I learned to write prose by reading poetry.

In my case, adulthood itself was not an advance, although it was a useful waymark.

Until a friend or relative has applied a particular proverb to your own life, or until you've watched him apply the proverb to his own life, it has no power to sway you.

I blush easily. I have difficulty meeting people's eye, difficulty with public speaking, the normal afflictions of the shy, but not to a paralysing degree.

Rarely do pens go dry in restaurants.

The question any novel is really trying to answer is, Is life worth living?