As a freelance writer, I'd be asked to become an expert for various magazines on any subject, whether food or wine or history or the life span of veterinarians. I was completely unschooled in any of these things.

Reality, while generally probable, is not always interesting.

I say, if you're going to eat a creature alive, you have to expect some screaming. That is the carnivore's burden.

First of all, I wish I could grow a beard.

All books should be trilogies; I mean I think we all agree on that.

So I am a product of the Internet, and to some degree a product of this sensibility of constant cultural reference.

I have a lot of cultural references that have amassed in my brain like shrapnel over the years that are meaningful to me.