The strength of your memory dictates the size of your reality

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.

Football allows the intellectual part of my brain to evolve, but it allows the emotional part to remain unchanged. It has a liberal cerebellum and a reactionary heart. And this is all I want from everything, all the time, always.

The problem a lot of writers have is that they really, really enjoy people saying, "You're brilliant." They let their self-perception be dictated by reader response. But if you're going to let other people make you feel good, you're going to end up feeling bad when they say the opposite. You've got to be a cultural stoic. Then you won't be devastated by people who respond negatively. Of course, the downside is that it sort of stops you from being able to enjoy people liking your work.

I think people's relationship with the concept of violence changes, and that to me might be a little more interesting.

I don't go to scary movies. I don't like the experience of being scared. I think it's very weird that some people do. Obviously, humans are the only animals that do that. You don't see a wolf walk to the end of a cliff and look over the edge to freak himself out.

All my friends are rock critics, so we talk about rock criticism a lot. Because of that, in order to be part of the conversation, you have to have an awareness of what the discussion is.