Unfortunately I have too many projects going. Two of them, fortunately, are already in the editors’ hands. One is this book on the birds of Northern Melanesia I’m doing with Jared Diamond, and that deals with speciation and particular ecology, biogeographic dispersal and all the other questions.

Oh God, there are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready. ... And I don't know whether I'll do another book or not. I might. It doesn't matter. I'm a happy old man. But I will cry my way all the way to the grave.

I would have to take longer than a minute to give my whole synopsis of my life, but I want to let you know that all of us should be free and equal and have equal opportunity and that is what I’m trying to instill and encourage and inspire young people to reach their highest potential.

I just want to go on walking, you know? I like to continue my work of movies and just go on with the capacity and opportunity to do exactly what I want. To stay free.

I don’t know. Probably Alice, maybe. But we were contemporaries, Alice Munro. I think it was probably most in poetry. I was of that age to get influenced. After a while, you don’t get influenced because your brain has turned to cement.

What is this guilt of which you prate, Earthling?

I would so much like to have a daily writing schedule. If I had one, I'd probably start about 9.30, write for 2 hours, have lunch, write another 2, then goof off. As it is, I goof off, then panic and write in the evenings. Do not follow my example.

At what age? It’s been a long path. I’ll stick with Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell. (“Someday I’d like to try a book like that,” I said to myself, “only with a female narrator. It would of course be quite different.”)

Begrudging mean-spiritedness.

As for motivation, I'd say it's a combo of 50s Puritan work ethic and finish-it-itis -- I hate not finishing things.