The things I wanted to be when I was a kid were an archeologist, because of dinosaur bones; a garbage man, because they got to ride on the side of the trucks; and a writer.

I wanted to just get a job so I could have enough money for my own apartment and be able to get drunk. And I did. Back then, on $125, you could do that in Manhattan. I was 19 years old the first time I got published and paid. I think it was a hundred bucks. I stared at my name on the check for 20 minutes.

We're finite creatures, doomed to never get a fraction of what wisdom it would take to deal with infinity. My book has a lot to do with the unbelievable power and beauty of that almost unattainable freedom. Since none of us really gets to know it, we don't know what extremely powerful dangers might lurk in it.

They say nobody has the attention span to read great books early in life. If I start to read something good, I'll look and it's 86 pages already. Attention span. What are they talking about? If it's good, it'll drag you in.

People speaking into handheld devices while they walk down the street and saying to the device, "I'm walking down the street now." People are enslaved. I was just up in the country for a few days last week and it was great: no television, no telephone, no nothing. I walked through the woods, sat around, smoked. And it was lovely. I think the desire to be free has mutated, and we now live in an era when the slaves celebrate their slavery - this whole corporate concept of being part of a "team" at work.

I think Elvis Presley will never be solved

The appeal for drugs has dwindled. Except for actual opium. If I could get real opium, I'd stir it in my hot coffee every morning. People keep giving me marijuana. I've got pouches in a drawer. I've been meaning to smoke a joint and watch Abbott and Costello Go to Mars. I planned to do this three months ago and I still haven't gotten around to it.