My father expected his first child to be a boy, and when it didn't turn out that way he didn't let the fact get in the way of a good story.

high fashion has little to do with what women wear and a lot to do with what retailers mark down later.

Not writing at all leads to nothing.

It's what the Taliban does in Afghanistan, it's what gets done in the Middle East, and it's clearly something that certain mainly conservative groups in the United States would like to do. They miss the good old days, when men were men and women were nothing.

Now, a lot of people are challenged by the fact that a record number of people in their sixties have living parents, and a record number of people in their sixties have kids who may still depend upon them.

Being accused of making money by selling sex in Hollywood, home of the casting couch and the gratuitous nude scene, is so rich with irony that it's a better subject for a comic novel than a column.... On one coast the cops are busting sex workers on Eighth Avenue, dragging them downtown to night court where they pay the fine and go right back to their corner; on another they're charging Heidi Fleiss with pandering in a town in which the verb is an art form.

I do think there's some aspect of being a novelist that is a little crazy making.