The thought of killing myself had slowed me down to five miles per hour. The thought of killing someone else stopped me completely.

And one of the things I noticed pretty early on in art school was that my classmates had no notion of an audience. Right? I mean, growing up with the mother that I did, I learned that when you walk into the dry cleaners, there's an audience waiting for you. You know, maybe it's just the person behind the counter.

When I look at a lot of older stuff that I've written, I think one sign of amateur humor writing is when you see people trying too hard.

The things I've bought from strangers in the dark would curl your hair.

I've never made up events, but I've always been a big exaggerator. It's written on my humorist license that I'm allowed to do that.

A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit.

He looked as though his life had not only passed him by but paused along the way to spit in his face.