Write a smart joke and people want to talk about it and keep the dialogue going. Also, if you can make someone laugh, it's a pronouncement that they like you on some level.

Good satire hopefully provides thought-provoking conversation.

I did the Daily Show, and then I did Air America Radio, and I realized that I was lucky enough to have a job where I could get information to people. But those spaces weren't appropriate to then tell people what to do - they were corporate enterprises. My main job was to be funny, so I was trying to figure out, how can I combine all the things I love - comedy, feminism, calling out bullshit - into a creative space that other creative people would want to join in and help out?

Having an enemy that is visible out in the daylight is a good thing.

In an odd way, my parents were proud of me. When they saw me do stand-up, I'd see them looking around the room and watch them taking in the people laughing. On some level, that comforted them.

And home pregnancy tests? They are so last century. Nowadays, I think there's an app that calls your iPhone to warn you that if you finish that third cosmo, you may wind up with a wombmate.

I had self-doubt about whether my story was interesting to people. I didn't want to write something that was anecdotal. It was important to me that people would get something out of my book. I want people to read it and say, "Now I don't feel so alone," or "I'm going to remember that next time I'm being an asshole."