With a Q&A, you need obviously to keep it snappy.

The fun thing about journalism is if you go do a story about something, you can now ask three intelligent questions about it. Or say three intelligent things. And that gets people talking.

If you're at my level and you go to a bookstore, even a good turnout is not that many people. Sometimes it is. But for the most part, it's not a huge turnout.

People are different in different situations and people are different online than they are in real life.

When wine drinkers tell me they taste notes of cherries, tobacco and rose petals, usually all I can detect is a whole lot of jackass.

Being in New York and having worked at Time Out New York and then being at Time, living in New York for a long time has helped because I know everybody. And they're the people who call me and give me jobs. So that kind of real networking, which is just living in a place and having jobs where people around you are extremely successful, has helped me tremendously.

I try to see what that person is thinking or feeling about that particular day. I just get more of a sense of what that person's like and hopefully it's more interesting than a normal conversation.