We're consumers. We are by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty, these things don't concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy's name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra...

Hey, you created me! I didn't create some loser alter-ego to make myself feel better. Take some responsibility!

I want my whole life lined with a topical anesthetic.

There's a moment in every book when the book turns and it surprises me.

I write compulsively. I've got so many ideas, and I love to do it so much, I can't not do it. I write the way some people do drugs.

"Getting fired," Tyler says, "is the best thing that could happen to any of us. That way, we’d quit treading water and do something with our lives."

The joke is, we all have the same punchline.