The essays are different because ultimately it's things I'm interested in, and I'm really just writing about myself and using those subjects as a prism.

If someone feels negative about the way society or culture seems to be going, what it probably suggests is that it's just moving away from the state that they are comfortable with or used to. It's understandable why someone would feel that way.

The people who review my books, generally, are kind of youngish culture writers who aspire to write books. When someone writes a book review, they obviously already self-identify as a writer. I mean, they are. They're writers, they're critics, and they're writing about a book about a writer who's a critic. So I think it's really hard for people to distance themselves from what they're criticizing.

Styx and The Stones may break my bones but 'More than Words' will never hurt me

Anybody who says they are a good liar obviously is not, because any legitimately savvy liar would always insist they're honest about everything.

People who are wrong during particularly important moments inevitably spend the rest of their lives trying to explain how their wrongness was paradoxically correct, or-at the very least-why their wrongness "felt right at the time," which is very, very different from being authentically correct.

Flying to me isn't scary, it's just incredibly boring. And I guess I have a fear of boredom, so in that regard, I'm afraid to fly.