One can't say how one behaved or why, really. Such situations, they are far more complex than any either/or proposition. It is simplistic to produce events in pairs and lean them against each other like cards. I suppose if you a playing go or shogi, then such a thing might be helpful, but that is not life.

I believe my friends think I'm funny. All the books are full of humor. Maybe it is a quiet sort of humor that masquerades as not-much-at-all. It is certainly easy to miss.

It is at the heart of our human enterprise, that is to say, at the heart of society, to allow consensus a power it ought not to have.

I have a very basic notion of the structure the book might have - that's mostly it. The rest is luck and happenstance.

A person always has a chance to protest this or that.

As far as ideas about book design: I have plenty. But I also try and let people do their jobs.

Americans are genuinely and profoundly anti-intellectual. They are especially so in their pleasure-seeking, which is epically banal.