If we do want to do that [ colonise space to survive, ], then vacuous materialism is not going to be enough for us.

The urban, on the other hand, is often seen as more real and mundane, even though it is obviously far more recent in terms of planetary development. I think this might be because nature corresponds to the unconscious and the artificial world of the city and human culture to the conscious mind.

I seemed to recall some words from an old Zen master, something like, "My Zen cuts down mountains." My rejection of Buddhism was a cutting down of mountains; that is precisely how it felt to me.

[My muse] is, in fact, a woman of the world, and precisely because of this, hopes that a diversity of cultures will endure, and that one bland monoculture does not swamp everything.

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

I think I'm probably too close to the seventies to be able to analyse them (it?) effectively.

People often refer to a creative ability as a 'gift', and, of course, it is, in that, if I had sat down and logically tried to work out who I was and what I should do, I would never have come up with the idea of writing. It was already there, gratis, a given - a gift.