We have all been empowered by the web: everyone with a keyboard can now effectively broadcast to a national audience. In a sense, it puts each of us on the same footing as the major media conglomerates, except for AOL, who now apparently own all our thoughts and teeth.

What I've discovered more recently is copies of books that I didn't represent, but that my boss represented when I assisted her on the dollar pile. I won't mention any names, but it is this profoundly bittersweet time of realizing, "Oh, I had a wonderful time working on this book and now it is a dollar relic on the side of the road."

Traffic counting was very boring and cold to sit out on the streets of New Haven in five pairs of pants - well, that's an exaggeration; it was three pairs of pants - in November for hours and hours clicking buttons counting which cars go left, right, and forward.

The reality is that there is an enormous value to gut-check instinctive decision-making in the world that is not hampered by reams and reams of research and complexity.

Elwyn Brooks White was a very Maine personality which is, "I hate everyone and everyone stay away from me."

The fact is I'm very self-similar.

There is a need for expertise, for real expertise. I'm not doing much to help that cause, but I think we can find the healthy balance between intellectualism and anti-intellectualism. Jocks and nerds may come together, I believe it.