I don't think I'm a witty person. To me, a witty person is a funny person who is also a smart person. My friend David Rakoff, who died a few years ago, he was a witty person. Fran Lebowitz is a witty person. I don't think there are that many witty people around, so you tend to notice them when they do come around. I don't consider myself to be that.

I don't like being left to my own thoughts.

Lovers of audio books learn to live with compromise.

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

I've maintained old friendships, like with people I knew in the nineteen-seventies, but have lost the knack for meeting new people. This has a lot to do with my writing schedule. I don't want to be disturbed, and the willingness to be disturbed is, I think, part of being a good friend.

whenever I read a passage that moves me, I transcribe it in my diary, hoping my fingers might learn what excellence feels like.

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