For me to do a story, something has to happen to someone. It's a story in the way you learn what a story is in third grade, where there is a person and things happen to them and then something big happens and they realize something new.

Not enough gets said about the importance of abandoning crap.

I wish that someone had said to me that it's normal to feel lost for a little while.

I think the thing that I wish somebody would ask me is just to ask about the business side of the radio show. I feel like I actually work very hard to make sure the business side of the radio show runs, and no one has any interest in how a public radio show is run. And rightly so.

Brad Pitt is so good-looking there's a lightbulb inside of him shooting good-looking-ness in all directions.

But you can make good radio, interesting radio, great radio even, without an urgent question, a burning issue at stake.

One reason I do the live shows - and the monthly speeches at public radio stations - is to remind myself that people hear the show, that it has an audience, that it exists in the world. It's so easy to forget that.