When it comes to finding available men in Minnesota, the odds are good, but the goods are odd.

The funniest line in English is 'Get it?' When you say that, everyone chortles.

Humor is not a trick, not jokes. Humor is a presence in the world - like grace - and shines on everybody.

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

When you're in your 20s, your 30s, even, you have - at least, I had - vast ambitions, and you sit around mooning about these things, and you're depressed, because you haven't done them. And it takes you a long time to come to the realization that if you can't be John Updike, well, then, you can't.

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.

Don't pour the oil directly into my navel, pour it on my sternum and let it run down into my navel, you ignorant peasant.