I didn't play or like a lot of board games as a child. I liked playing with my G.I. Joes and making up adventures for them.

Personally, I've never had it as a goal in life to be happy. Seems impossible to achieve. Even the Declaration of Independence seems to acknowledge this. They talk about the pursuit of happiness, not happiness itself.

It was one of those days when every time I went to go out the door, something grabbed me in the back of the brain and said, lie down and masturbate one more time.

In fact, I have no hobbies. The only thing I like to do in life is to go to the Russian Baths in Manhattan. I also like to watch sports on TV, and I like to read books. So that's it - Russian Baths, sports, and books.

Even when I was living below the poverty line as a novelist, I was still living better than 99.5% of the human population of the world. But in my little, soft realm of trying to amuse a few dozen middle-class people with my books and articles, I did struggle to survive in my own way.

I don't laugh that much, but I do like humorous books, and I like to entertain readers that way.

From age 23 to 44 - I'm 45 now - I was always in need of money, and I was especially in need of it from 23 to about 34, and my great aunt would always give me money, a hundred bucks, every two months or so, and a lot of times that hundred bucks made a huge difference - I could eat or pay a small bill. It kept me going. She gave me money. It was very loving.