I think in American culture, we put value on economic success but tell people you don't have to be economically successful to be happy.

The very idea that there is no truth, but only the filter of narrative through which truth is invented is something I learned at the feet of the most leftist professors at Yale and am learning again from Sarah Palin during the Vice Presidential debate, and I find that very disorienting.

My type of humor is me not caring whether people know what I'm talking about or not.

There's a tradition in American fiction that is deadly serious and earnest - like the Steinbeckian social novel.

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.

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.

I used to enjoy the anonymity of being a literary figure and occasionally a public radio figure.