Nature is cold, wet, hard and unforgiving.

Everybody has a cartoon of themselves. Mine is: I write very fast, and I'm ruthlessly efficient with my time.

I have to always remember, writing is really hard.

I'm interested in Russian language, culture, history... and I lived there, for four years, as a reporter for the Washington Post and have visited many times since.

I'm not the slowest writer that you know.

The only reason the word "brand" gets a little tiresome is that something that is complex and wonderful and deep begins to sound like a can of tomato soup. I recoil at that, but I'm used to it. I know what it means: It means that The New Yorker is not merely the magazine that comes out in print once a week. It's the Web site, it's the festival, it's our mobile application - all these things - and what they stand for and what they mean.

I don't want to romanticize the world in which everybody watched three networks and the Washington Post and the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal were incredibly dominant. That time has passed.