I think I've always wanted to be a role model, and I think ... everyone should try to live their life like they'd like to be a role model. I think it's like the thing keeping me out of jail.

I'm a smart enough person to know that I don't want everyone to be cookie-cutter versions of the nine guys who wear Converse sneakers.

Anyone who's lost someone to cancer will say this, that you have to struggle to try to remember the person before the diagnosis happened, because they really do change - as anyone would change.

I feel lucky because I was a nerd, which I talk about in the book, but I had academic success, so through that, because that's what my parents put a great deal of value on, I had a great childhood because I sort of fulfilled the expectations of being good at school.

I always wanted to write, even before I realized that there was a comedy writers' world, or what that life was like. I never thought of myself, at least as a little kid, in terms of being the onscreen talent. I always thought it'd be so much fun to write sketches and be a writer. Even as little as 6 or 7, that's what my main interest was.

Growing up, I remember my parents feeling a little wary of 'The Simpsons.' This was the late eighties, and there was a wave of articles about TV shows that were bad for America. Then we all started watching it and loved it.

I'm not good at anything except writing jokes. I wasn't good at sports, I wasn't good at anything artsy, ever. I think there was a real worry for a while about what I would be good at. I was just this chubby little Indian kid who looked like a nerd.