America should treasure its rare, true original voices and Mark Leyner is one of them. So treasure him already, you bastards!

Silence has been destroyed, but also the idea that it's important to learn how another person thinks, to enter the mind of another person. The whole idea of empathy is gone. We are now part of this giant machine where every second we have to take out a device and contribute our thoughts and opinions.

Communications devices were always used to effect change, to effect revolution. Telephone, telegraph - these all seemed like very big enhancements at the time.

I always think that good writers should be growing up on the brink of death - it really lets them see mortality very clearly.

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.

If you read only one memoir by a disaffected, urban, 20-something Jewish girl this year, make it this one. Shukert rocks the lulav.