I meet people at book signings. My record now, for signing, is ten and a half hours in one sitting.

Performance is really an important part of how I edit. I sometimes take something out because I realize I put in a joke just to be funny and the audience laughed, but I should be ashamed of myself. I sometimes take out sentences, which are perfectly fine on paper, just because they don't flow when I say them out loud. I always read my work out loud now.

Sometimes people say, do you want a drink? And I say, oh, I'd like to, but I'm a tragic alcoholic. I always say tragic. I'm a tragic alcoholic.

I attributed their behavior to the fact that they didn't have a TV, but television didn't teach you everything. Asking for candy on Halloween was called trick-or-treating, but asking for candy on November first was called begging, and it made people uncomfortable. This was one of the things you were supposed to learn simply by being alive, and it angered me that the Tomkeys did not understand it.

The interesting thing about gay people is that you can't really put on a wedding without them. They're the ones who make your dress, and do the flowers and the catering. They've toiled in the wedding industry all these years but were never allowed to do it themselves.

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

If you are any kind of an artist, then validation . . . can be a result, but you're going to do the work anyway.