Growing up, I didn't have a lot of toys, and personal entertainment depended on individual ingenuity and imagination - think up a story and go live it for an afternoon.

My breakthrough as a reader was when I discovered the European adventure story writers - Alexander Dumas, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Walter Scott, to name a few.

After all, you put a lot into creating a universe and everything that goes with it, and it seems a shame to use it only once.

My interests are different now than they were thirty years ago.

Some prescient American collectors, including Vicki and Kent Logan and Mera and Donald Rubell, began collecting Chinese art before 2000 with a genuine passion, but as the auction prices exploded everyone was beating a path to the galleries and artist studios in China. It became the 'China thing.'

I think there are things in my story that have helped my creativity. Your father being killed, for instance, is one of the best things that could happen to a kid if he's going to write poetry or songs.

I really like IU... I just think she has the most adorable everything. Her voice is beautiful; she's talented at writing music, guitar, everything. I fell in love with her when I watched her on that drama 'Dream High.' That's probably when I first really fell in love with her.

You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.