People would ask if I wanted to host things and I was like, "No, I'm a writer, I don't host things." Just thinking I wouldn't be good at it - which is true - but also just wanting to hold on to some part of my identity.

There have been people who represent something very symbolic and I've been freaked out interviewing them.

I've definitely written people e-mails telling them I've loved their stories, but that seems more like a professional journalist thing to do.

You have to live among rich liberals to understand what they're saying. You'll never believe what they mean by 'middle class.' They mean themselves.

You really, really have to care about animals to want to kill one. You have to learn all this stuff about them and start thinking like them.

When I get real big volumes of hate mail, it's usually because I wrote something poorly. But it's also because some group told people to e-mail me and those people didn't read the article, they read the post about what I wrote about. And they all e-mail me. And they all come around at the same time.

As journalism dies, I kind of feel like I want some skills besides writing. I'd like to be able to write movies or host TV shows or whatever. Things that I might actually not inherently like quite as much, but are interesting and fun things to do. A good backup plan.