The sad fact is that the vast majority of drunks stay drunks. There's a small minority of us who reach that fork in the road where one side says 'live' and the other says 'drink'.

I don't celebrate birthdays much, except for decade-wise. It's not a really big thing.

I'd turn off the internet for a month and make us actually talk to each other, and be responsible for your opinions and not be able to hide behind the anonymity of the cyber-wall to speak your mind. To actually have to face people and see their reactions and discuss it - actually discuss it. It won't happen. Unless the grid goes down.

I guess we all have some sort of Rubicon that we haven't crossed in our lives and we've thought about for who knows how long. And for me, it's writing.

I've seen more convincing wigs on William Shatner.

I collect books, primarily first-edition 20th-century fiction.

It's amazing being a member of perhaps the last analog generation - being born in the late '40s, growing up in the '50s and '60s, when it was still a very analog world. And in New Orleans those days, the country was just next door, as it were. You didn't have to travel miles and miles to get out in the woods. There's tons of fishing, obviously, in New Orleans, and tons of hunting. That was part of the cycle of life, to get fresh meat from the butcher or go duck hunting and get it yourself. It wasn't malicious or insensitive. It was just there, and you used it.