I don't feel when I'm writing that I'm drawing from any other writer, but of course I must be. The writers I've admired have been not so very different from myself: Evelyn Waugh, for example, that kind of crystalline prose. And I've always admired W. Somerset Maugham more than any other writer.
I like to be surrounded by books. My wife Evelyn has a Ph.D. in comparative literature, so we have a lot of her Spanish and German literature books which are wasted on me, plus a lot of novels and books on art and architecture shared by us both. Evelyn used to edit an art magazine called 'FMR,' so we have a common interest in design.
I sometimes think if I had gone to Oxford or Cambridge and looked like a handsome young guy who could be in an Evelyn Waugh novel or something, I'd be a massive movie star. But there's a longevity to what I do. It's more reliable. Someone isn't deciding that I'm the next big thing.
It wasn't until I was 14 and watched the 1976 Olympic games on television that I really started to dream about the big time. I remember seeing Evelyn Ashford in the 100 meters, and she was going to UCLA.
Proverbs 31 is God's definition of Evelyn Roberts.
My go-to author for knowing it all is Evelyn Waugh. 'A Handful of Dust' is as perfect as a book can get.
Patrick Bateman: I think, um, Evelyn that, uh, we've lost touch.
Evelyn Williams: Why? What's wrong?
Patrick Bateman: My need to engage in homicidal behaviour on a massive scale cannot be corrected but, uh, I have no other way to fulfill my needs.
