INTERVIEWER

When you get up in the morning to write, do you just sit down and start out with your pen? You don’t have any devices you use to . . . ?

VIDAL

First coffee. Then a bowel movement. Then the muse joins me.

From the paris review. 

 http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3917/the-art-of-fiction-no-50-gore-vidal