You will be fierce. You will fearless. And you will make work you know in your heart is not as good as you want it to be.

I don't like that whole "art should challenge you" thing. Because I don't feel like art actually does challenge you. I was a semiotics major at Brown, and there's this idea that stories are better, books are better, and movies are better if they cocked you off your axis and you were completely disoriented and you'd really have to rethink everything.

Where radio is different than fiction is that even mediocre fiction needs purpose, a driving question.

We're Jews, my family, and Jews break down into two distinct subcultures: book Jews and money Jews. We were money Jews.

For people starting public radio shows, one of the things you have to do is you have to talk every single public radio station into picking you up.

I am mostly a pretty worried person. In conversations, I am always worried about what to say.

I suppose I shouldn't go around admitting I speak untruths on the radio.