Do I exaggerate? Boy, do I, and I'd do it more if I could get away with it.

Kools and Newports were for black people and lower-class whites. Camels were for procrastinators, those who wrote bad poetry, and those who put off writing bad poetry. Merits were for sex addicts, Salems were for alcoholics, and Mores were for people who considered themselves to be outrageous but really weren't.

Also, I used to think that one day I might get someone to iron my shirts, but the truth is I really like doing them myself.

Often I'd take out my magnifying glass and stare into the chaos that was her face.

My feet are completely flat, but for most of my life they were still shaped like feet. Now, thanks to bunions, they're shaped more like states, wide boring ones that nobody wants to drive through.

Writing helped to have jobs that involved running around, pushing things like dish carts and wheelbarrows. It would be hard to sit at a desk all day, and then come to sit at another desk. Also, it helps to abandon hope. If I sit at my computer, determined to write a New Yorker story I won't get beyond the first sentence. It's better to put no pressure on it. What would happen if I followed the previous sentence with this one, I'll think. If the eighth draft is torture, the first should be fun. At least if you're writing humor.

Up close the city constitutes an oppressive series of staircases, but from a distance it inspires fantasies of wealth and power so profound that even our communists are temporarily rendered speechless.