I longed to read everything I possibly could, and the things I read in turn produced new yearnings.

What helps me is watching other people negotiate loss. I think about how we dropped a bomb on people in Hiroshima and 150,000 people were killed in one night. Those people had to mourn and they had to rebuild their city right away.

I immersed myself in books and rock 'n' roll, the adolescent salvation.

I don't care whether they're men or women, that's bullshit. A good writer can get into any gender, can get into any mouth. When I write I may be a Brando creep, or a girl laying on the floor, or a Japanese tourist, or a slob like Richard Speck. You have to be a chameleon when you're writing.

I think some of that hopelessness of my generation got passed on to later generations - the sense of uselessness.

I started going to Bible school really early in life. Being raised a Jehovah's Witness, I had to read the Bible over and over. These stories were so horrifying and really difficult to reconcile. For me, Noah wasn't the story of the graham cracker box with the little animals it was horrifying. I would ask the same questions as a child. "Well, what about the little kids? What about the dogs and cats?"

More than anything that's been the thread through my life - the desire to write, the impulse to write. I mean, it's taken me other places, but it was the impulse to write that led me to singing.