Does being an atheist make it easier to conjure up a supernatural world?
I think that it gives me a need to write fantasies. I don’t have a fantastical belief, so it’s nice to create a world where there could be one.
At a commencement speech, you told students to embrace death. Is that a theme for you?
Well, it is the one universal truth, and our culture is so terrified of it. I work in Hollywood, where people routinely chop their faces in order to look younger and look like shiny, scary monsters. And everybody says, Well, that’s just fine. Death and life are part of the same thing.
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