To start at a new place is always to feel incompetent & unwanted.

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.

I listen to money singing, it's like looking down from long French windows at a provincial town. The slums, the canal, the churches ornate and mad in the evening sun. It is intensely sad.

A writer once said to me, If you ever go to America, go either to the East Coast or the West Coast: The rest is a desert full of bigots. That's what I think I'd like . . . a version of pastoral.

I don't think I write well - just better than anyone else.

The breath that sharpens life is life itself.

The only way to eliminate unemployment is to eliminate unemployment benefits.