I remember when I first found out I was having a boy, I became obsessed with buying boys' clothes. Then came my daughter, and I was obsessed with buying girls' clothes. Everything looks 10 million times cuter when it's teeny-tiny.
I have spoken to a whole group of millionaires, head executives at Microsoft. Boy did I chew those guys out.
When I was a little boy in short pants, I dreamed about a miraculous ointment that would make me invisible. Then I became an adult, began to write, and wanted to be successful. Now I'm successful and would like to have the ointment that would make me invisible.
People misunderstand who I truly am. Truly who I am. If I go somewhere, people just think I'm a party boy 24/7.
The French are pretty thin-skinned. The few times I mentioned a French writer in 'City Boy,' the relatives would ring up in high dudgeon. I once wrote a mocking review of Marguerite Duras in the 'New York Review of Books,' and good friends of mine in France got very angry.
Certainly, when I was a boy, people liked to believe that lawyers were kind of pillars of goodness of the likes of Atticus Finch in 'To Kill a Mockingbird.'
In the modern world, it may be that a living father can only be half a father to a boy - the dead father is the other vital half: the half that grows the boy up once and for all.
My mother died, and I couldn't stand to look at her bedroom any more. I'd get sick. I've always been a momma's boy.
Being the 8th out of 10 kids, and being the one that stayed in trouble, I sort of became a momma's boy.
I am a momma's boy, so she gets whatever she wants.
I was an altar boy in an incredible monastery that was attached to a rectory. The theater of the church is the most incredible theater, and in this church, it was beyond. It was this huge monastery. It was landmarked. It's a beautiful building, and I kind of had the run of it.
At the age of eighty, the Dalai Lama has begun to discuss a range of prospects for the future disposition of his soul. Traditionally, after he dies, a search party of senior monks would set out to locate his new incarnation, who is most often a boy toddler, who goes on to be trained as a monk and a leader.
As a little boy of 3 or 4, I became lame. Something was wrong with my right leg. There are pictures of me being pulled around in a little wagon. The doctors didn't know what to do. So my nanny took me to the miraculous Madonna at Sacro Monte in Varese, the priest blessed me, and I walked.
I don't tend to think in terms of a moral authority - be a good boy, do good things - more in terms of what feels right.
I confess that as a young boy, Sunday was not my favorite day. Grandfather shut down the action. We didn't have any transportation. We couldn't drive the car. He wouldn't even let us start the motor. We couldn't ride the horses, or the steers, or the sheep.
I'm not a bad driver. And I never will be because I took lessons when I was quite a boy. I never had to pass a test because there wasn't such a thing when I first started driving a motor car. So I didn't have to pass one.
For years I have been mourning and not for my dead, it is for this boy for whatever corner in my heart died when his childhood slid out of my arms.
Prior to being mugged I did not feel I had to carry a gun. However, I knew how to shoot a gun very proficiently. As a boy, I used to play cowboys and Indians all the time.
Since I was a boy, from this house, I was out rescuing crocodiles and snakes. My mum and dad were very passionate about that and, I was lucky enough to go along.
I wrote 'Wish U Were Here' for Cody Simpson, and he invited me to perform with him on tour and be in his music video. He was shy at first. I think it's the surfer boy in him that makes him so mellow.
