I'm more muscular than I was in my younger days. My biceps and shoulders, especially.

I don't think fatherhood's changed me so much as it's conjured protective instincts I've had all along.

I think that 99% of the snipers who take shots at me from electronic foxholes also realize they could never withstand the sort of public disparagement, nor the revelation of so many personal details, that I've endured for years and still remain as impenitent, obnoxious, and ready to argue all critics into the dirt as I am. I think this also jacks up their hatred level, because they realize they'd never be so strong-willed.

I'm more muscular than I was in my younger days. My biceps and shoulders, especially.

What are a genuine pain in the ass are all the misconceptions and outright lies. I read somewhere that in 2004 I was homeless in Seattle and drinking heavily, which came as a shock since I've never been homeless and haven't had a drink since 1982. I've also heard SEVERAL times that I'm a card-carrying member of several white-supremacist groups, when the last group I belonged to was the Boy Scouts.

Nowadays, you suffer the same risks - ostracism, career loss, possible assault - for being perceived as racist that you would have encountered a century ago for daring to question racist ideology.

I could have completely lost my mind or became a junkie or abandoned all sense and judgment and committed some rash, stupid act that would have sent me right back into the cage. Instead, I chose to be happy - but not so much for the sake of happiness as for spite.