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There was a lot of pressure on me when I was 18, 19 to move to America. I went out for a couple of weeks and hated it. I thought I could go out my mind. You could really see how people could go off the rails.

I guess I wanted to leave America for awhile. It wasn't that I wanted to become an expatriate, or just never come back, I needed some breathing room. I'd already been translating French poetry, I'd been to Paris once before and liked it very much, and so I just went.

Well, my relationship to America at the time I left was very limited.

I'd known since about eleven that I wanted to live in America.

I'd never been content in America.

When I reached America, there was so much space and colour. The possibilities seemed endless. At least that's how I felt at 18. But of course, I didn't have to take the usual immigrant route of battling to find a job and a home in a strange country. I could play tennis. I spoke the language, and I was making money. It was easy, really.

America has never taken me to its heart. I've always been an outsider.

I did not intend to stay; I had no experience in the United States - I may have been here less than 24 hours - but I knew I would never get inside there. And 'there' not being America necessarily, but that harmonious mode of living that some people are lucky enough to have in this country.

You know, I left the country when Reagan got in; I went to France.