People who are wrong during particularly important moments inevitably spend the rest of their lives trying to explain how their wrongness was paradoxically correct, or-at the very least-why their wrongness "felt right at the time," which is very, very different from being authentically correct.

I love sports, but I don't like live sporting events, because I don't like sitting in the crowd. I like listening to records, but I don't like going to concerts, because I don't like standing in the crowd. I guess I just don't like being in the crowd itself.

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.

And I spilled gravy on my Carolina sweater, because I am alive.

Anybody who says they are a good liar obviously is not, because any legitimately savvy liar would always insist they're honest about everything.

When I was a film critic, the reason I kind of found it disenchanting was because the things that I wanted to talk about were the ideas in the movie, the theme of it, and contextual elements that weren't necessarily central to the story. But the only thing people really wanted was a plot description and how many stars I'd give it. It didn't matter how much effort you put into writing a piece, they looked at it solely as a consumer's guide toward going or not going to films.

I honestly believe that people of my generation despise authenticity, mostly because they're all so envious of it.