Meetings are places where dead ideas rise from their graves and eat the brains of the living.

Basically Ken is a very gentle, home-loving person. I remember when one of his stick insects had a knee infection. He stayed up all night rubbing it with germoline and banging its head on the table.

With a novel, you have to have a story. It's much more important to have it matter to the reader what happens to people, and it has to make sense and end in a way that is satisfying. So I spend a lot more time thinking about that. Then the writing itself usually is easier for me, because I know where it's going.

Never assume that the guy understands that you and he have a relationship.

His body rigid with terror as he waited for the savages to something horrible to him—bash his head with clubs, or stab him with spears, or… …or tap him on the shoulder.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people try their hand at this demanding profession (humor columnist). After a few months, almost all of them have given up and gone back to the ninth grade.

Today's beauty ideal, strictly enforced by the media, is a person with the same level of body fat as a paper clip.