The person that was closest to me growing up was my sister, who died at 19. She was an incredibly powerful girl, deeply committed to art and literature.

We are delightfully trapped by our memories. I can't drink a bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape Vieux Telegraphe without revisiting a hotel bistro in Luzerne, Switzerland, where I ate a large bowl of a peppery Basque baby goat stew. A sip and a bite. A bite and sip. Goose bumps come with the divine conjunction of food and wine.

I became aesthetically obsessed with language. And 'literary artist' - poet and novelist - is a calling. You are called to it the way preachers are called to preaching the gospel.

You do manage a somewhat religious attitude toward your art. It is a calling rather than a job.

Make treating yourself a priority and always remember your life is happening now. Don't put off all your dreams and pleasures to another day. In any balanced personal definition of success there has to be a powerful element of living life in the present.

If you want to accomplish something in the world, idealism is not enough - you need to choose a method that works to achieve the goal.

It's an old-fashioned, very outdated, non-functioning idea that we can drain all the resources from directly around us and skyrocket to the top of a skyscraper, and that's success. We have to understand that when one has to leech from others to that degree, then that's something we need to watch and stop.

There's no such thing as an overnight success.