When I do dig down, I'm very [irritated] underneath, ... Why can't I just write a book about taking a walk and having a cup of coffee? It kind of annoys me about myself. If I could do it differently, I would. It's not some kind of principle. It's just in my nature somehow.

There are characters in it that do deliberately go as far as they can in certain kind of taboo areas,

Well, I thought the Sex Pistols were the cream of the crop. They came in and topped everybody, for sure. They took all the existing strands and made a perfect package out of them.

I felt just overwhelmed by input: the Vietnam war and the collapse of the '60s and the proliferation of media' it just felt like everything was too much to handle and you just tuned out.

You realize there are certain things that you'll never do that you always thought would be part of your future, ... It's a big relief to discover what you are best-suited for, and it's a real advantage to be able then to focus. You can just jettison all this useless floundering around, attempting to do stuff that's really not in your range, and focus.

I was going to try to evoke the atmosphere that excited me without trying to actually depict it, ... The main idea was to talk about people for whom poetry was the highest value. ... I just knew I wanted to talk about this kind of way of life, and then it occurred to me to do the Rimbaud-Verlaine thing.