I write because I feel driven to write. I write from a sense of inner necessity. I don't write for anything other than that.

I think the fundamental apprehension is that the city's an organism of some form, rather than being governed from above.

I loathe computers more and more, so I have one I can shut down and shelve like a book.

If you believe something, you can have a morality that means something as well. You can feel recognized as an individual within the universe; it can give meaning to who you are.

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.

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.

A creative life cannot be sustained by approval, any more than it can be destroyed by criticism.