Well right now I'm very fascinated with 1920s Berlin. I mean probably the more interesting thing would be to go to the beginning of civilization or precivilization - like polytheistic times. It would be interesting to see what came before modern religion and culture - what circumstances created the environment or the need for it.

If I were going to convert to any religion I would probably choose Catholicism because it at least has female saints and the Virgin Mary.

Every relationship probably has at its inception a hundred things that you could pick on and divert you from it but the feeling is there. You figure out a way to make it work.

This is the point being missed by readers who lament Liquor's lack of hot sex scenes probably because they aren't old enough to understand that a passionate relationship could be about anything other than sex.

Well I have a sister that I'm very close with and that relationship is probably the most intense relationship of my life to date probably of my life period.

If my career continues along its current arc people will probably look at me and see a writer who is obsessed with the relationship between rich and poor and with how the rich somehow or other always manage to betray the poor even when they don't mean to.

It was R.E.M. who showed other Eighties bands how to get away with ignoring the rules - they lived in some weird town nobody never heard of they didn't play power chords they probably couldn't even spell 'spandex.' All they had was songs.

Undeserved praise causes more pangs of conscience later than undeserved blame but probably only for this reason that our power of judgment are more completely exposed by being over praised than by being unjustly underestimated.

Moral power is probably best when it is not used. The less you use it the more you have.

But you cannot expect every writer to dwell on human suffering. I think my books do deal with grave issues. People who say they are too positive probably haven't read them.