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

I don't watch television. And certainly not ads; I loathe advertising.

I made an impulse buy of a house in Maine to make my wife happy and now have gone back into debt and it's all started over for me.

There is no ritual that enhances creativity other than just starting.

My career as a magazine writer was largely prefaced on the idea of curiosity, to go on adventures and weasel my way into the lives of people that I admire.

I think in American culture, we put value on economic success but tell people you don't have to be economically successful to be happy.

More people have more access to more readers for less money than ever before in history. It means a lot of dross; but it means a lot of very talented people can find and nurture a readership in ways that were not possible twenty years ago. From a creative perspective, that is all that writing is about.