The only time I've ever been mistaken for someone else is - and this arguable still - when a person came up to me on the boardwalk of Ocean City, New Jersey and said, "You look a lot like that guy from computer ads" and I said, "There is a reason because I am that guy," and the guy looked at me for a minute, laughed and said, "That's a funny joke, but you really do look like him." He thought I was not me.

Reality, while generally probable, is not always interesting.

Part of the transaction between writer and reader is the pleasure of building a community and encouraging people to play along.

Generally speaking, I think it is fair to say that I am a friend to the creatures of the Earth when I am not busy eating them or wearing them.

It’s been a tough couple of years for condescending nerds. And if bookstores fall, Jon, America will be inundated with a wandering, snarky underclass of unemployable purveyors of useless and arcane esoterica.

Creating fake facts does require a measure of haphazard research, insofar as they need to not just be possible, but also interesting.

My hope when I wrote the first book was that I would get to do it again. But it was not entirely clear that that would happen.