The things he did on purpose were usually no different from the mistakes he made by accident.

When given the choice, we’d all rather be happy now … even if that guarantees we’ll all be sad later.

The villain is the person who knows the most but cares the least.

But whenever I meet dynamic, nonretarded Americans, I notice that they all seem to share a single unifying characteristic: the inability to experience the kind of mind-blowing, transcendent romantic relationship they perceive to be a normal part of living. And someone needs to take the fall for this. So instead of blaming no one for this (which is kind of cowardly) or blaming everyone (which is kind of meaningless), I'm going to blame John Cusack.

Who Am I? Or (Perhaps More Accurately) Who Else Could Be Me?

It drives me crazy to do readings of my books, because if I read anything I've written in the past, I'd like to almost rewrite everything. If I could, I'd completely rewrite Fargo Rock City, and every sentence would be just slightly different. In all likelihood, most of them wouldn't be any better. Some of them would just be changed back to whatever form they used to be, before I second-guessed myself the first time.

In New York, people are unhappy on purpose, because unhappiness makes them seem more complex; in Washington DC it just sort of works out that way.