I ask questions. I watch the world. And what I have discovered is that the parts of my fiction that people most tell me are 'unbelievable' are those that are most closely based on the real, those least diluted by my imagination.
I write 100% of my material by myself. Thatβs really important to me because I donβt want what Iβm trying to say to be diluted by anyone that might not know my circumstance or who I am as a person.
The hours I spend with you I look upon as sort of a perfumed garden, a dim twilight, and a fountain singing to it. You and you alone make me feel that I am alive. Other men it is said have seen angels, but I have seen thee and thou art enough.
I've never gotten money from most of those records. And I made those records: In the studio, they'd just give me a bunch of words, I'd make up a song! The rhythm and everything. 'Good Golly Miss Molly'! And I didn't get a dime for it.
It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime.
There is a moral dimension, for me, in anything that's any good.
When younger writers and poets, musicians and painters are weakened by a stemming of funds, they come to me saddened, not as full of dreams and excitement and ideas. I am then weakened and diminished, and made less rich.
For me, it's always been about preparation, and the more prepared I can be each week, the less pressure I feel and the more confident I am. As your confidence grows, it's only natural that the pressure you feel diminishes.
If they are really persuaded that the army is annually established by me, that I have the sole disposal of posts and honours, that I employ this power in the destruction of liberty and the diminution of commerce, let me awaken them from their delusion.
I started using contact microphones that you can place on common, ordinary objects, like a rake. I put a microphone on it and it picked up the tines vibrating and turned it into a horrible din. What attracted me to it was the horrible din - that's what I really liked.
I breakfast when I get up, lunch when I get the chance. If I never get it, I forget it. Sometimes I dine at seven, sometimes at midnight, sometimes not at all; and I never get to bed until four or five in the morning. Everything depends on the news; the hours make no difference to me.
For me, I don't expect to have a really amazing meal each time I dine out. Having a good meal with your loved ones - that's what makes the experience.
We'll watch 'Britain's Got Talent,' 'X Factor,' 'Come Dine with Me' and 'Masterchef.' But we don't watch 'Big Brother,' which is rubbish. I certainly won't be tuning into the new series of 'Celebrity Big Brother' either. I think it's awful, exploitative and vulgar.
I turned down 'Come Dine With Me' because I can't cook.
The sign that I don't like the book I'm reading is finding myself watching reruns of 'Come Dine With Me.'
Snoop Dogg has had me to Hollywood to rap with him on his records, and the 2 Live Crew brought me to Miami and wined and dined me to make a record with them.
I think that the lady who is waiting on me at the local diner, who has kids in school and the mouths to feed, I think she probably has as nice a life as I have. And she only wants to improve her life, her lifestyle.
We came to Portland because there was a good alternative public school. Friends who lived there told me about it, and my son loved it. I left his dad and went to work slinging hash in a breakfast diner and working nights tending bar in a biker tavern.
I do have a treadmill desk in my office, and for a while, I would walk on it while checking email and going through jokes. I haven't walked on it in probably four months. Now it's more of an upright dining table for me. At some point, moss will grow over it, birds will build nests, and nature will reclaim the treadmill as its own.
The directness of my mother is clearly in my voice. Her opinion is always a very strong opinion at the dining room table. I think she empowered me to have the same drive.
