You don't want to get that sort of sound in your writing that boing that gives you away.

A cruise ship is a floating town of lazy people.

In Lake Wobegon, we don't forget mistakes.

A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.

Cleverness is a burden after that. You are supposed to settle down and be a good person, raise your children, and be good to your friends, which you may not have been back when you were clever.

We carry adolescence around in our bodies all our lives. We get through the Car Crash Age alive and cruise through our early twenties as cool dudes, wily, dashing, winsome . . . shooting baskets, the breeze, the moon, and then we try to become caring men, good husbands, great fathers, good citizens.

Humor has to surprise us; otherwise, it isn't funny. It's a death knell for a writer to be labeled a humorist because then it's not a surprise anymore.