I am not beautiful, so I don't know why I'm making myself ugly. But the mustache stays.

When a good friend gives you his or her book, you don't want to read it, because you're afraid that it's not going be what you hope it can be.

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.

As you know, the thing that I know the least about is the topic of sports.

There is no metaphor for death. All comparisons are odious, but I'll do one anyway. We all have these moments of harsh clarity where we realize that something is gone, whether that is youth, whether that is someone we care about, whether that is where we literally lose someone we care about to death. Or we end a relationship that we thought would last forever, or have one ended for us. We all have these moments in life where it seems impossible to fill up the time that we have left for us, and yet we have to do it somehow.

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

Everyone feels like they would love to be a really cool bartender in a really cool bar, but you're still surrounded by people who want to destroy themselves with alcohol. When you look at it that way, it's not that much fun.