I've been in the studio when you go through a track and you run down a track and you know even before the singer starts singing, you know the track is swinging... you know you have a multimillion-seller hit - and what you're working on suddenly has magic.
Starbucks did this magical thing where it took a product that people didn't really care that much about and made it this treat. It makes you feel better about your day and gives you a chance to reflect, makes you feel a little special.
Generally, I think most of my writing tends to have some kind of magical element to it. That's the way I can access the emotional life of the character.
For me, even in my first book, the pleasures of writing anything magical is that it has to be physical. It has to be grounded and very much in this world. Then, I get to play with all the consequences of this new thing.
Everyone around me does music, so I just kind of knew. It wasn't some magical moment. There were loads of other things I wanted to do. I wanted to be a lawyer, for example, because I just love arguing, but it wasn't on the cards.
There's absolutely nothing irrational about me; insane, yes, irrational, no. But my dumbest fear would be spinning in the magic tea cups. Who the hell wants to pay to spin around like a bent yoyo for laughs?
Music - special magic that communicates feelings and sensitivities that are human and what is so wonderful about the art. Let your kids get involved in the arts and study this workshop of human sensitivities, sadness, joy, happiness and aware of sadness and joy and happiness in their lives.
The Metropole Orchestra is like Count Basie or Duke Ellington with strings... it's strings that swing. Strings that swing like Dizzy Gillespie... keep swinging, baby. And when you have all of that special excellence of the Metropole Orchestra, then your music just flies - it soars in a way that's really magical.
I have for a long time loved fabulist, imaginative fiction, such as the writing of Italo Calvino, Jose Saramago, Michael Bulgakov, and Salman Rushdie. I also like the magic realist writers, such as Borges and Marquez, and feel that interesting truths can be learned about our world by exploring highly distorted worlds.
I have always loved magic realism as a form of writing. I have also been fascinated for a long time with the intersection of science and religion.