The fact is I'm very self-similar.

It seems that every generation needs its public, tweedy, literary personality to sell its consumer electronics. To whatever degree I can live up to the Plimptonian legacy, I am humble and proud.

Terry Gross. I would rush home from high school to listen to Terry Gross.

Panic is an incredibly catalyzing creative force. And almost out of sheer necessity, I found I had to talk about myself and my real life as it is effectively lived by me.

One can always come up with funny lists and jokes. You know what? I take it back. Not everyone can always come up with funny lists and some jokes. I'm very lucky to have a gift where I can do that pretty ably.

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.

In a mad moment, my family and I purchased a home in Maine because it's the place in the world that my wife loves better than any other place or any other human, and so I have committed my life and what had once been my economic security that has now returned to insecurity, to a patch of painful, rocky land on the shores of horrible, cold waters to a place where people go in the summer to experience autumn because leaves start falling on August 1.