If you're doing an interview, you need conversational tension. After you talk to them, you're not going to have a relationship with them, they're not going to like you, they're not going to be your friend.

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.

The amount of response I get, in both a negative and a positive context, is completely related to the amount of books I sell, I think. It seems to have nothing to do with what I'm writing, but what degree of success I'm perceived to have.

Art and love are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.

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.

Maybe I could survive in one of those resort prisons where they house white-collar criminals. I've always wanted to get better at tennis.

It has always been my belief that people are remembered for the sum of their accomplishments but defined by their singular failure.