It's so hard to say what you really mean. For any number of reasons: to protect yourself, or if you just can't find the words.

I forget how beautiful and calm California is. It's not so much about the place, but also the age that I came to the place and, well, other things. New York is hard.

Like when you have the right title for something you're writing and you get lost - you can always go back to the title and go, "Yeah, that's what this is about."

If I'm in LA, I'm close to home, and that just brings up all these other things, good and bad. There is a reason why I am not there .

I'm hugely honored [with the Man Booker Prize].

My British publisher has this independent press. It's pretty small; they actually won last year. And she's got this great energy, and she's fiercely independent, and you know this book was a hard sell. No one wanted to buy this book. But she did, and so it's paid off for her, I hope.

It's all the same for me, how I teach, how I write, how I think.