I really think [William] Burroughs was onto something here, when he said, "Dreams are a biologic necessity and your lifeline into space."

I also remember a line from a song by Smog [Bill Callahan], which seems to describe the experience of a town-dweller moving to the country: "I was raised in a pit of snakes/Blink your eyes - I was raised on cake."

My muse can take the form of a landscape, an era, a style of writing, a piece of music, and, perhaps that which I find strangest of all for a muse, a human female. Of course, she's also adept at taking the form of toothless old Japanese men or young English lads with tattoos.

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

The quality of that 'who I am', is what I hope comes out in the writing.

I'm more a dog person than a cat person.

When I think back on it, I have a sense of relaxation, as if in the seventies no one had to try to be anyone other than who they were. I'm sure that's not really true, but that's how I remember it, and I suppose it might be relatively true.