Most people, or at least most of the people that I've come into contact with, would like to be written about.

Perhaps the little Negro girl was holding a concealed razor blade. Maybe she was one of the troublemakers out for a fresh white scalp.

I don't really do very well when I'm sent somewhere. A lot of magazines want to send you somewhere to do something. They want you to stow away on a ship, or something like that.

If I'm riding my bike I just replay the same scenarios over and over in my head, like I haven't had a new mental adventure since high school. So that's what I like about books on tape, so my mind can't wander anywhere.

Some friendships are formed by a commonality of interests and ideas: you both love judo or camping or making your own sausage. Other friendships are forged in alliance against a common enemy.

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.

I've often lost faith in myself, I've never lost it in my family.