Writing is a performance art for me. They're very closely aligned, writing and performing. But I'm a writer, not a performer.

Mocking Hugh Hefner is easy to do, and in my mind should be made easier.

I was wrong, however, to suppose that Sellers thought the world revolved around him. He thought the cosmos did too, and history, and the fates... Like every egomaniac, he behaved as if everybody else spent their day being as interested in him as he was.

The secret for an artist is to make that a subject and not bang your head against the wall and give up. But to turn it into and treat the new subject matter, which is one's own vanishing.

Reading and writing... are exciting. The most exciting things I can think of. And now, as I reflect... I have to say that I've been lucky in that I'm amused by what I do - sufficiently amused.

All honest labor becomes easy; it only becomes hard when done with unwillingness.

Generally it is our failures that civilize us. Triumph confirms us in our habits.