In the first 33 years of my life which is up until I climbed Everest, I was a very restless and slightly unhappy sort of person. I really didn’t have a great deal of social life, but I’d become very interested in adventurous activities. Perhaps, I was, in some respects something of a loner. But after I got married, that certainly changed my life very considerably, indeed. I found that it was possible to mix having a family with continuing on with adventurous activities, but I think a great deal of that was having a suitable wife. My wife was very, long-suffering. She knew that there were certain things I wanted to do and she was happy that I should do them. She was prepared to put up with considerable periods of being alone with the kids. She, was marvelous, so it made it possible for me to do the things that I wanted to do as well.

You have to make sacrifices on either side. You also to have an understanding family, to know that there are going to be some sacrifices.

Well, I make the magic wherever I can. I don’t know if that’s conscious or accidental.

I always acted to be able to afford paints.

I think it’s so good to abandon projects. I never feel sad about not trying to publish that novel.

I worked as an editor until I joined the New Yorker , and so I’m an extremely tough self-editor. I also love being edited. I love a hard edit. It’s a privilege to be edited hard.

I wrote while listening to Caribou, Kamasi Washington, Frank Ocean, Mitski. Towards the end, a lot of Talk Talk.

As a writer, the only thing that you can guarantee yourself pleasure and challenge from is inside your own writing process.

You have kids and you’re forced to remember that time actually extends. The world extends, policy extends, stakes extend past your own life.

At a basic level, I think something is successful if I think I got myself anywhere new at all.