We loved killing time and had perfected several ways of doing so. We wandered the hallways carrying papers that indicated some mission of business when in reality we were in search of free candy.

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

If someone were plucked from the group and given those responsibilities, they might find themselves growing more aloof, just by virtue of that promotion. Suddenly the group culture excludes you. I saw this in my own working life, and I don't think it's a coincidence - I sensed a kind of loneliness in middle managers especially.

We were fractious and overpaid. Our mornings lacked promise. At least those of us who smoked had something to look forward to at ten-fifteen.

I don't actually think of the internet as the bad guy. I think of the internet as doing a hell of a lot of wonderful, fascinating, interesting things. A lot of information that's exchanged on the internet is extremely useful, and every once in a while it percolates up to knowledge. Wisdom is far harder to come by.

The main questions of everyday life are too enormous to answer in any definitive sense.

Humor is a very big part of life, and if you exclude humor from your book, you're not capturing a very important part of human experience.