Look at me. My concerns-are they spiritual, do you think, or carnal? Come on. We've read our Shakespeare.

Obviously, in journalism, you're confined to what happens. And the tendency to embellish, to mythologize, it's in us. It makes things more interesting, a closer call. But journalism taught me how to write a sentence that would make someone want to read the next one.

For peace of mind, I will lie about any thing at any time.

I sleep with a glass of water on the nightstand so I can see by its level if the coastal earth is trembling or if the shaking is still me.

When the beer is gone, so are they -- flexing their cars on up the boulevard.

There’s so much I can’t read because I get so exasperated. Someone starts describing the character boarding the plane and pulling the seat back. And I just want to say, Babe, I have been downtown. I have been up in a plane. Give me some credit.

I think of the chimp, the one with the talking hands.