We're not unique in our family. We're more ambitious but we're not special. I'm not funnier than anyone else in my family; it's just that we wanted more than Raleigh, North Carolina, had to offer. If my brother wanted more than Raleigh had to offer, you would know his name. My sister Lisa has a really unique and different voice, but she doesn't want that. She's a fine writer, but never said, "I want a book. I want that kind of attention."

Each one of us is left to choose our own quality of life and take pleasure where we find it with the understanding that, like Mom used to say, sooner or later something's gonna get you.

I haven't got the slightest idea how to change people, but still I keep a long list of prospective candidates just in case I should ever figure it out.

At first, writing for The New Yorker was very scary to me. I couldn't imagine anything that I would write in that typeface.

On a busy day twenty-two thousand people come to visit Santa, and I was told that it is an elf's lot to remain merry in the face of torment and adversity. I promised to keep that in mind.

Speed eliminates all doubt. Am I smart enough? Will people like me? Do I really look all right in this plastic jumpsuit?

To say that a humorist exaggerates to get big laughs, I don't see how that's big news.