When you're a kid, you always feel you have this weird kindred-spirit thing with other Jews, until you get older and you realize it's just middle-class bourgeois Jews that sort of fit a template that your family fits into one way or another.

Conversation is a beautiful thing. When I was a younger guy, just wandering around talking to people was what kept me connected to the world.

Any comic can get on the radio show and be funny. You can get that on any morning radio show or afternoon radio show. There are plenty of people who do that. It's not a difficult format, to sit around with two or three comics and be funny.

I didn't know that people compared Bill Hicks and I but certainly I'm flattered if they do. I knew Bill a bit. We had dinner a couple of times and played guitar together once. I really tried to keep my distance from him professionally.

My cats, the ones that I have, were feral when I found them so the relationship that I have with them 10 years in is very mutual, earned, and evolved over time. It was never an easy thing. I like that they have a certain distance and have their own sense of selves.

Jokes do finish themselves. I really do see them as ongoing conversations about personal themes that I ruminate on.

I look at every book as a self-help book.