I think any life can be interesting, any surroundings can be interesting. I don't think I could have been so brave if I had been living in a town, competing with people on what can be called a generally higher cultural level.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Life may not be beautiful, but it is interesting.
Living gives you a better understanding of life. I would hope that my characters have become deeper and more rounded personalities. Wider travels have given me considerably greater insight into how cultural differences affect not only people, but politics and art.
I don't think my life is more interesting than anybody else's.
Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.
I wanted to escape Small Town U.S.A. To dismiss the boundaries, to explore. My life experience came from watching movies, TV, and reading books and magazines. When your culture comes from watching TV everyday, you're bombarded with images of things that seem cool, places that seem interesting, people who have jobs and careers and opportunities.
It's often said that life is strange. But compared to what?
It's true that I had a bucolic, truly peaceful childhood, growing up in a house next to our family's orchard. We had a lot of books and art, but no electricity until I was eight years old. Since then, I have seen a lot of inner-city life, though.
I just find it fascinating, like everybody, to be in a different life. It's an escape.
I was brought up in a publishing home, a newspaper man's home, and was excited by that, I suppose. I saw that life at close range and, after the age of ten or twelve, never really considered any other.
In all big cities the style of life is the same. Same endless array of restaurants; same big museums with the usual suspects; same anonymity, which can be thrilling when you're young but which I found got tiresome.