Such movies are always a danger...falling in love is something most adults have actually experienced...The theme is universal and encourages...unhealthy comparisons...why can't our lives be like that? It's a box left unopened, and its avoidance explains the continued popularity of vampire epics and martial-arts extravaganzas.

The only real advice you can give anyone is to keep writing.

I can't seem to fathom that the things important to me are not important to other people as well, and so I come off sounding like a missionary, someone whose job it is to convert rather than listen.

It is never appropriate to comment on a woman's breasts. I would never do it on the street or at a supermarket, but when I'm sitting a table signing books, sometimes I notice that a woman will have remarkable breasts. And I will maybe quietly say something about it. It's not in a sexual way, because I'm a gay man - I would never say to a man "great ass" because that would be sort of creepy.. I hope it's not creepy to quietly tell a woman she has nice breasts.

The walking tour guides one through the city's various landmarks, reciting bits of information the listener might find enlightening. I learned, for example, that in the late 1500s my little neighborhood square was a popular spot for burning people alive. Now lined with a row of small shops, the tradition continues, though in a figurative rather than literal sense.

They were Jesuits," she told me. "That means they believe in God but not in terlet paper. You should have seen their underwear. Disgusting.

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.