Last Christmas I was clipped by a train. Mum was dying so my head was elsewhere. I was walking home and had to cross one of those crossings that say, “Stop, look and listen.” I didn’t do any of those things, and I had my headphones in so I couldn’t even hear the train. It clipped my left elbow.

I went on a private jet with David Hasselhoff, and it was so turbulent between LA and Vegas I thought it was going down. I also thought: “The headline won’t be about me; it will be: David Hasselhoff and friend.”

Where do I begin? There have been a lot.

The print size in my mind decreased with time’s incremental decline, and as I arrived at the last word – weeks – it suddenly struck me, with all the force of the fullest sense of the word ‘struck’, that this could actually be his answer and not just the logical next time period in my sentence. Every cell in my body, except those responsible for maintaining a reasonable, calm exterior, was now lindy-hopping at that possibility, the only one that hadn’t occurred to me until that moment.

Bad things happening to my children and grandchildren.

The real goal is to make your soul go, not to make a living. Practicing art, even in a mediocre way, can make the soul go.

If I were a religious person, my first question would be "Where the hell is God?" But I never expected him to be on the job.

I was going to be a journalist. But after the war I studied anthropology, just in order to become educated. I thought it was worth knowing the science of man. I still intended to become a journalist, but there were no jobs, because the reporters who had gone to war were coming back and were entitled to their jobs, and the women who had replaced them were damned if they’d leave, and they shouldn’t have left.

I think it would be the moment where I was doing everything right, where I was beyond criticism. It was back in World War II. It was snowing, but everything was black. The trucks were rolling in. I was surrounded by my buddies. And my rifle was between my knees, my helmet on my head. I was ready for anything. And I was right where I belonged. That would be the moment. It would have to be the moment.

Well, again, getting back to Nietzsche’s statement, as a person of deep faith, I obviously believe in something in the end. I don’t know what it is, but it’s a great big something.