Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought - asleep. When we are weary of the living we may repair to the dead who have nothing of peevishness pride or design in their conversation.

'American Horror' goes for a very specific kind of Seventies suburban downer ambience - 'Flowers in the Attic' paperbacks Black Sabbath album covers and late-night flicks like 'Let's Scare Jessica to Death.' It even has 'Go Ask Alice'-era urban legends.

'Hamlet' is one of the most dangerous things ever set down on paper. All the big unknowable questions like what it is to be a human being the difference between sanity and insanity the meaning of life and death what's real and not real. All these subjects can literally drive you mad.

It is a horrible fact that we can read in the daily paper without interrupting our breakfast numerical reckonings of death and destruction that ought to break our hearts or scare us out of our wits.

I can't turn on the television without seeing me or open the newspaper without seeing me and honestly I'm sick to death of me.

So I go to my first book signing and these two girls came up and gave me a piece of paper: '10 reasons you should date our dad. He climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. He's a lawyer.' He didn't know what was going on. He didn't even know me. They called him and he came down and asked me out that day. Now I'm dating their dad!

I'm afraid that this is me getting on my high horse now but we have yob television yob newspapers and funny enough whereas it was my mum and dad school police church who used to set the standards now it's tabloids and yob television who set the standards by which people live.

I knew I was going to be a journalist when I was eight years old and I saw the printing presses rolling at the Sydney newspaper where my dad worked as a proofreader.

Deep Throat's information and in my view courage allowed the newspaper to use what he knew and suspected.

It's cool to be in the paper every once in awhile and people read about you and they know who you are.

I once saw a picture in the paper of John Hegley with 'poet' written on his knuckles and I thought that was pretty cool so I was quite up front about it.

In Fargo they say well that's a job. How well do you get paid? For example for this book I was written about in Entertainment Weekly and it was kind of cool because my mom asked me if Entertainment Weekly was a magazine or a newspaper.

I do think sometimes there's danger in guest appearance mania. I've seen too many examples that sound cool on paper like 'Oh get that guy to sing the hook on that guy's song ' and then that's all it is. It's a cool idea that sounds good on paper.

We had incense and rock'n'roll posters and we sold records and rolling papers. People could just like hang out. We had a cool vibe going.

When you're a kid you see your parents reading the newspaper and you're like 'God why are they reading the newspaper?' When you're young you're not reading the newspaper. But there comes a time in your life when the newspaper's cool.

I think it would be cool if you were writing a ransom note on your computer if the paper clip popped up and said 'Looks like you're writing a ransom note. Need help? You should use more forceful language you'll get more money.'

Computers may save time but they sure waste a lot of paper. About 98 percent of everything printed out by a computer is garbage that no one ever reads.