I like things that are kind of eclectic when one thing doesn't go with another. That's why I love Rome. The town itself is that way. It's where Fascist architecture meets classic Renaissance where the ancient bangs up against the contemporary. It has a touch of everything. That's my style and that's what my work is about.

Quite a lot of our contemporary culture is actually shot through with a resentment of limits and the passage of time anger at what we can't do fear or even disgust at growing old.

I have a really amazing fan club it's contemporary but it's a little bit old school. There's a lot of connection. I have a fan club president who really responds to people.

A book is sent out into the world and there is no way of fully anticipating the responses it will elicit. Consider the responses called forth by the Bible Homer Shakespeare - let alone contemporary poetry or a modern novel.

I saw how many people were poor and how many kids my age went to school hungry in the morning which I don't think most of my contemporaries in racially segregated schools in the South thought very much about at the time.