When I first thought of being a writer I had visions of stacks of books in stores with my name on them, that sort of thing. But I never imagined this would be the reaction.

I gazed around the room and my eyes stopped dead on a little boy standing in the corner. This was a particularly eerie doll. Life-sized and blond-haired and blue-eyed. I saw a little Nazi boy, pockets probably stuffed with scissors and retractable blades. My grandfather on my mother's side was rumored to be half Jewish, which practically makes me Jerry Seinfeld's brother, and thus wary of blond German boys with their hands out of sight.

your mind is like an unsafe neighborhood; don't go there alone.

We were young. We were bored. And the old electroshock therapy machine was just under the stairs in a box next to the Hoover.

It turned out I had always been a smoker. I just hadn't had any cigarettes.

As I sat in the hot, salty water, I thought, 'No wonder Mr. Bubble always gives me a urinary tract infection and hives.' Mr. Bubble was for common people. Mr. Bubble was for my so-called brother, their true child. I was a Vanderbilt. I should bathe in condiments and seasonings.

Our lives are one endless stretch of misery punctuated by processed fast foods and the occasional crisis or amusing curiosity.