Tonally, there was no discussion; I just don’t know any other way to do it. I don’t want to make people feel bad, and I don’t want to make their problems into a joke. I do love telling people when they’re right and wrong, but for the most part, it was always going to be about real fights where people have a real difference of opinion and a real dispute. I want to make jokes, but I also want to make a decision that is fair.

Comedy does offer an avenue to television and film careers for untelegenic people that great drama does not.

Do not listen to the killjoys who tell you never to eat oysters in months that do not contain the letter R: May, June, July, August, Octoba. You know.

I'm an older, wall-eyed, overweight, tweedy writer who has been lucky enough to be asked to play various iterations of himself in a certain realm of popular cultutre. That gives me great joy and excitement, but I don't go to the media saying, "And I'm also the world's greatest actor."

Even the worst job has its benefits and so does being a professional literary agent, and - I know I said this at the time but I still believe it - the worst job is the one that you know is wrong for you, but you still do it. You're afraid to quit.

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.

Just a small-scale cult of personality, maybe raise a geodetic dome out in western Massachusetts and make people wear jumpsuits and give all their possessions to me.