This strong sense of who I am that I've always had, since I was very young, is what makes me write.

We're all more or less interested in the 'swinging sixties', of course, but that's not what I mean. I'm interested in the particular naive glamour that clings to the post-war and pre-Hendrix era.

The peculiar thing is that, in focusing only on the here and now, Buddhism seems to despise the world.

It's true that Eastern philosophy and religion were not unknown to me as a child, since my father has explored much in that area, and written books more or less in that area, too.

I went on a meditation retreat. In 10 or so days, I spent about a hundred hours meditating, observing 'noble silence' the whole time, and so on. This was an interesting experience, which has had some beneficial effects for me.

I never went to church as a child. I did not .

You might call this innocence. I had a sense of another world that had not been spoken of to me.