One of the problems I have with many writers is their stories are all somewhat similar. They might be very good, but they're always on the same turf. I don't have those limitations.

Alcohol had a lot to do with it, too, and mental instability. All writers are narcissistic, manic-depressive drug addicts and alcoholics, and I am no exception.

The very genetic determinism I posited in World's End as a way of shaking off my inherited demons is being proven in fact as we map out the human genome.

The hardest part is always the middle of anything because at that point, on some unconscious level, you have to figure out what it's about and why you're doing it and what it means. You don't know that in the beginning.

I don't think we need a critic to negotiate with the audience. People say, "Who are you writing for?" I'm writing for myself but my audience is anybody who knows how to read. I think a story should engage anybody who knows how to read. And I hope that my stories do, maybe on a different level for more sophisticated readers than, say, a high school kid, but still a story has got to grab you. That's why we read it.

Work ethic and this determination is all part of escaping the depressive side. Of course I'm manic depressive, maybe not to the degree that Exley was, but I think all writers are. There are highs and lows. Look at David Foster Wallace.

At best, I consider flying an unavoidable necessity, a time to resurrect forgotten prayers and contemplate the end of all joy in a twisted howling heap of machinery; at worst, I rank it right up there with psychotic episodes and torture at the hands of malevolent strangers.