I'm happy to report that 'The New Press' is still in business to this day. But not thanks to me. I was a really bad publishing intern.

As a writer I'm more drawn to villains who are just slightly mad.

As a teenager in Brooklyn Quentin had often imagined himself engaged in martial heroics, but after this he knew, as a cold immutable fact, that he would do anything necessary, sacrificing whatever or whomever he had to, to avoid risking exposure to physical violence. Shame never came into it. He embraced his new identity as a coward. He would run in the other direction. He would lie down and cry and put his arms over his head or play dead. It didn't matter what he had to do, he would do it and be glad.

You don’t learn about yourself by being alone, you learn about yourself from other people.

How often have I met and disliked writers whose books I love; and conversely, hated the books and then wound up liking the writer? Too often.

Josh speculated about the hypothetical contents of an imaginary porn magazine for intelligent trees that would be entitled Enthouse.

My book group has one rule: no books for adults. We read young adult fiction only.