The Sims is an escapist vehicle for people who want to escape to where they already are, which is why I thought this game was made precisely for me.

Book writing is a little different because, in my case, my editor is a year younger than me and basically has the same sensibility as me.

The thing that has always baffled me about people's perception of my writing is the sense that I'm a very controversial, opinionated, polarizing person. I feel like I write about things that I'm interested in, and I describe why they're interesting to me. I could be negative, I guess. It's far easier to write why something is terrible than why it's good.

The worst thing you can do to anybody trying to be creative is to demand participation in their vision.

Outcasts may grow up to be novelists and filmmakers and computer tycoons, but they will never be the athletic ruling class.

I guess it really didn't even dawn on me that you could be a rock critic as a job until I was maybe almost out of college. I knew criticism existed. I read Rolling Stone and Spin. Siskel and Ebert were on television. But I had absolutely no idea how to get that kind of life. And moreover, it didn't interest me that much. I just sort of read normal books growing up. I wasn't that media-conscious. I felt like the one thing I was able to do was to listen to a record and decide whether I liked it.

We assume that all statements must be mild inversions of the truth, because it's too weird to imagine people who aren't casually lying, pretty much all the time.