I think anyone who's not as good a writer as me is absolutely a hack, and I think anybody who's a slightly better writer than me is brilliant. So of course that makes me a horrible critic when it comes to books, because I can't distance my own experience from what I'm doing.

There was a time in our very recent history when it was “interesting” to be a Star Wars fan. It was sort of like admitting you masturbate twice a day or that your favorite band was They Might Be Giants. Star Wars was something everyone of a certain age secretly loved but never openly recognized

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.

I almost never get lonely. I love being alone. I'm glad I'm married, and I love my wife. But there's never been a situation in my life where my unhappiness was based on loneliness.

No woman will ever satisfy me. I know that now, and I would never try to deny it. But this is actually okay, because I will never satisfy a woman, either. Should I be writing such thoughts? Perhaps not. Perhaps it’s a bad idea. I can definitely foresee a scenario where that first paragraph could come back to haunt me, especially if I somehow became marginally famous.

Life is rarely about what happened; it's mostly about what we think happened.

I grew up on a farm, and we didn't have cable and only limited radio stations, so I wasn't inundated with culture the way people in other parts of the country were. But I was really interested in it.