There is a deep sadness to American poverty, greater than the sadness of any other kind. It's because America has such an ideology of success.

Regard yourself as a small corporation of one. Take yourself off on team-building exercises (long walks). Hold a Christmas party every year at which you stand in the corner of your writing room, shouting very loudly to yourself while drinking a bottle of white wine. Then masturbate under the desk. The following day you will feel a deep and cohering sense of embarrassment.

Don't look back until you've written an entire draft.

Whatever respect photography may once have deserved is now superfluous in view of its own superfluity.

I'm going to end up like one of those old weirdos who lives in a network of tunnels burrowed through trash - yet I do not fear this.

Live life and write about life. Of the making of many books there is indeed no end, but there are more than enough books about books.

You may have gathered that I am not the most cheerful of revellers - some characterise me as the death and soullessness of any party but it wasn't always so, believe me.