When the New Yorker turned down work, they turned it down in such an elaborately gentlemanly way making apologies for their own shortsightedness. Undoubtedly it was their fault but somehow for some reason this fell short of the remarkably high standard that you by your own work have set for yourself. They had a way of rejecting my work that made me feel sorry for them somehow.

If the marriage needs help, the answer almost always is have more fun. Drop your list of grievances and go ride a roller coaster.

Every show is your last show. That's my philosophy.

When you're old you feast on your memories, and if you spend too much time on exercise, you may get old and not have many.

A good friend is a person who thinks you're one of the good eggs, even if he knows you're a little cracked.

You learn this great lesson of life: it's not about me. It's just not. The matter of talent-which seemed so important to you when you were young-is not of great importance. We're simply a conduit. We take things out of the air into us and put them in the form of stories. That's pretty much it.

I was an English major at the University of Minnesota, and I was very shy, which many people misinterpreted as intelligence. On the basis of that wrong impression, I became the editor of the campus literary magazine.