I always wanted to do a baseball book; I love baseball. The problem is that a very large part of my following is in non-baseball playing countries.

There is no such thing, incidentally, as one kudo.

England was full of words I'd never heard before - streaky bacon, short back and sides, Belisha beacon, serviettes, high tea, ice-cream cornet.

When I was growing up I used to think that the best thing about coming from Des Moines was that it meant you didn't come from anywhere else in Iowa. By Iowa standards, Des Moines is a mecca of cosmopolitanism, a dynamic hub of wealth and education, where people wear three-piece suits and dark socks, often simultaneously.

I love everything about motels. I can't help myself. I still get excited every time I slip a key into a motel room door and fling it open.

There is more difference between a zebra and a horse, or between a dolphin and a porpoise, than there is between you and the furry creatures your distant ancestors left behind when they set out to take over the world.

When you tell an Iowan a joke, you can see a kind of race going on between his brain and his expression.