I hated leaving a hole in the smoking world, and so I recruited someone to take my place. People have given me a lot of grief, but I'm pretty sure that after high school, this girl would have started anyway, especially if she chose the army over community college.

The Korean man nodded, the way you do when you’re a foreigner and understand that someone has finished a sentence.

Maybe one day, I would write a story about arguing in public, and those would come in handy in some way.

We were not a hugging people. In terms of emotional comfort it was our belief that no amount of physical contact could match the healing powers of a well made cocktail.

The humor section is the last place an author wants to be. They put your stuff next to collections of Cathy cartoons.

In America, if your next-door neighbor has a Rolls-Royce, you want one too. But in England, if your neighbor has a Rolls-Royce, you want him to die in a fiery accident. That's a quote from someone else, but there's something about American optimism, that feeling you can do anything if you're at least middle class in America. If I can have a writing career, anyone can. There's nothing special about me.

I've always been very upfront about the way I write, and I've always used the tools humorists use, such as exaggeration.