In contravention of my belief that any life ending in death is essentially pointless, I needed my friends to open up that plastic bag and take one last look at me. Someone had to remember me, if only for a few more minutes in the vast silent waiting room of time.

A lot of the ways of advertising a book - the cover, whether somebody sees it on a subway or sees it in a bookstore - those things are going to rapidly diminish as we move to an electronic model.

I love Paul Giamatti - God, that man is like a walking Chekhov. His connection to humanity is unbelievable, and those feelings of low self-esteem - the way that all comes together on the screen? Delicious.

My first book really did change my life. It allowed me to fully express myself. There was a sense that I was worth something as an artist.

The greatest books in Russian literature are satires. Gogol's Dead Souls, for example, is a very over-the-top satire about life in Russia. I think it's the thing we do best.

... I'm the fortieth-ugliest man in this bar. But so what! So what! What if someday she lets me kiss each one of her freckles again? She has like a million. But every one of them means something to me. Isn't this how people used to fall in love? I know we're living in Rubenstein's America, like you keep saying. But doesn't that just make us even more responsible for each other's fates? I mean, what if Eunice and I just said no to all this. To this bar. To this FACing. The two of us. What if we just went home and read books to each other?

Forget the fountain of youth, pal of mine. You can live to be a thousand, and it won't matter. Mediocrities like you deserve immortality.