Recently, I've discovered Radiohead and find them to be quite good. So clearly, I'm some kind of musical retard. (Jonathan Ames, Middle-American Gothic)

In all my life I'd never been approached this way, the car pulling up, the Where you going? It was something I wish had happened hundreds of times. I was a looker - someone who looked over at every car at every traffic light, hoping something would happen, and almost never finding anyone looking back - always everyone looking forwards, and every time I felt stupid. Why should people look at you? Why should they care?

Every story we remember is a novel. Novels make things more universal.

McSweeney's as a publishing company is built on a business model that only works when we sell physical books. So we try to put a lot of effort into the design and production of the book-as-object.

I need eight hours to get maybe 20 minutes of work done. I had one of those yesterday: seven hours of self-loathing.

There is no faith like the faith of a builder of homes in coastal Louisiana

I worked at magazines for over 10 years before I even thought of writing a book.