I'm interested in endurance. People persist in the face of the most excruciating hardships.

Things, very strange things, happen in folktales and there is never much attention given to the whys and wherefores.

But every age deserves its fashion and its forms, and no one can control what survives.

Why did people try to shush trouble away as if it were an unruly child?

Writing, for me, is always a dance between the critical part of my brain and the subconscious.

I guess I'm drawn to stories of people whose physicality puts them on the outside of things in order to explore the ways in which an identity is formed around these prevailing attitudes.

I never know where I'm headed when I'm working on a book.

We are like flowers always reaching up towards some shred of light. I find this wondrous, nearly magical, certainly brave.

As we change, the way in which we are perceived in terms of our relevance, our value, our beauty, and sexual potency changes.

We grow, we mature, some of us give birth, we age, we die.

The language of the novel differs from the just-the-facts language of the old tales. It's robust and earthy, sometimes even baroque.

I'm a punk rocker. I don't do Christian.

If a society is to be free, its government has to be controlled.

I'm lucky to have the privilege of being able to choose what I want to do.

We've been duped into believing we don't have 25 minutes to have something change our life. We don't have 2. You know, we're tweeting. We're running around. We're 15 words or less.

This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor.

All the musicians that I know want to act.

You can only see one thing clearly, and that is your goal. Form a mental vision of that, and cling to it through thick and thin.

Sensual is everything that refers to the delight of the senses. And that's what artists do, is stimulate the senses in any possible way.

Do you think it's possible to discuss politics without preaching?

Go anywhere you wish, talk to everyone. Ask any questions; you will be given answers. When you want to learn, you will be taught. Use the library. Open any book.