We had the great good fortune and shortcomings of character that marked every generation that had never seen war.

A dentist is only half the doctor he claims to be.

That's one of the things about comedy - I think it works best when it's contextualized, as opposed to kind of an island of cleverness.

Once I had the voice, I knew I wasn't going to fall off the bicycle. I tap right back into it. It really was like learning how to ride a bike - you never forget, and I was able to carry it along with some ease. I never encountered any stumping problems that left me not knowing what to do, so I was mostly able to hold my ground. Of course, I should mention that it took me a long time to actually acquire the voice; there were a lot of frustrated attempts along the way, revisions to long sections and versions of the book that I abandoned.

If you can get by with quotes from The Godfather and nothing you say matters, that's pretty bleak, don't you think? Don't we want what we say to matter?

After I left college I thought, very naively, that either you became someone interesting - an artist - or you went into academia. If you ended up in an office you were dull and lacking. And I ended up in an office.

We're no longer dealing in the world of the real in a truthful way. We're interacting with each other in shiny homepages. I don't think that makes for honest communication.