RIC: Do you remember the last time you died? 

V: I die every night. 

RIC: The little death or the big death, which do you prefer? 

V: The secret is that the little death is the big death. 

RIC: Live or die ? 

V: I exist between the living and the dead. 

RIC: Orange or lemon? 

V: Bitter lemon. 

RIC: Theater or poetry? 

V: The theatre of love is better than poetry of love. 

RIC: Mouth or vagina? 

V: Both, depending on the night. 

RIC: On your stomach or back? 

V: Both, depending on the day. 

RIC: Swallow or spit? 

V: Swallow, like Eva. 

RIC: Left breast or right breast? 

V: Right in the middle. 

RIC: Rather in the morning or rather in the evening? 

V: In the morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening. 

RIC: Love standing against the wall next to a Matisse painting or on your living room table between art books? 

V: Neither. Outside, on the beach, at night under the stars and the cover of darkness. 

RIC: If you have to save one sentence from just one book, which one? 

V: Lawrence Durrell: The whole Mediterranean — all of it seems to rise in the sour, pungent taste of these black olives between the teeth. A taste older than meat, older than wine. A taste as old as cold water.

RIC: If you have to kill a writer, who? 

V: Lord Byron, the little death. 

RIC: In memory of a Sufi patient, your definition of life in just two words?

V: Re-animate.