Isn't it possible that self-esteem isn't causal at all, but simply the happy side effect of a sturdy character, itself the product of unambiguous moral education?

Most writers seem to prefer the morning, or they feel at their best in the morning. Ideas are popping into your head while you're in the shower. And that's true for me, as well.

That's what fiction writers do: create characters and do terrible things to them for the entertainment of others. If they feel guilty enough, they write happy endings.

America is one of the few places where the failure to promote oneself is widely regarded as arrogance.

There is nothing worse than annotated humour.

At college my three main interests were - in descending order of importance - a steady supply of recreational drugs, a 2-S draft deferment, and overthrowing the Nixon administration.

The poor are the only ones who suffer. And they're used to it.