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I came from a lower-middle-class postwar family in a time of austerity and retrenchment, with no one in the family who was in any way artistic or a potential mentor to a budding writer, and yet this is what I became.

My family didn't like me going on the stage, and they didn't much like my being a writer, either.

I didn't go to graduate school, where all the important writers seemed to be getting their start. I didn't pursue getting published in literary magazines. I didn't even send out countless pitch letters and manuscripts to agents.

I had an all right high school, even though I hated school. I wasn't massively popular, but I was okay. But I wouldn't want to do it again.

I didn't live at school, I lived where I could and studied what I enjoyed studying. I took what I wanted from that education but was making my first record at the same time. I don't know anyone from school. I was just leading a different life. I was really interested in writing and other things.

I was a good student - a geek, really - editor of the school paper, thought I was going to go to university.

I was a complete outsider in high school.

I didn't have a very starry school career, I was medium to above average, nothing special.

I think I became a writer because I didn't know of anything else to do. Maybe some incident from my childhood influenced me.

I didn't belong to the sort of family where the children's classics were laid on. I went to the public library and read everything I could get my hands on.