In New York, people are unhappy on purpose, because unhappiness makes them seem more complex; in Washington DC it just sort of works out that way.

Every generation is more influenced by technology, which is always changing faster.

I feel like a lot of people involved with celebrity journalism have interesting ideas about the people they want to write about going into the interview. Then as soon as they actually sit down with that person, they basically ask the questions they think journalists are supposed to ask, and they start viewing themselves almost as a peer of the subject. Like they're going to become friends. That's why most celebrity journalism is so terrible.

In baseball and sex, cliches are usually true: pitching beats hitting, and people always want to be loved by anyone who doesn't seem to care.

Saying you like "Piano Man" doesn't mean you like Billy Joel; it means you're willing to go to a piano bar if there's nothing else to do

I was fortunate that I was at newspapers for eight years, where I wrote at least five or six stories every week. You get used to interviewing lots of different people about a lot of different things. And they aren't things you know about until you do the story.

We would sit in the living room, drink a case of Busch beer, and throw the empty cans into the kitchen for no reason whatsoever, beyond the fact that it was the most overtly irresponsible way for any two people to live.