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There's a certain lack of gimmickry to what I do that makes people in England go: 'Where's the thing?'

I'm a magpie in my fiction, taking whatever looks shiny and curious to line the nest of my story.

All writers are magpies, right? We're always stealing bits from different places and then weaving them into our little nest.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place, and in the sky, The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard among the guns below.

My neighbors are crocodiles and tigers and giraffes.

My best friend was a magpie goose, and my magpie goose would follow me around, and we'd dance in the zoo together. Then I'd be covered in mud!

I try not to be superstitious, but, you know, we never put any shoes on the table. That's totally against the law in our house. And I always salute when I see one magpie.

I'm the gypsy man. I don't really live anywhere. I've got a roof over my head in Los Angeles, and I've got a lot of friends everywhere.