We all live in an ongoing series of calamities. I don't know of any individual who doesn't have a series of calamities. Life doesn't operate where, you make a certain amount of money, you pay your bills, you move on from day-to-day-to-day. No! What happens is, you make your money, you pay your bills, and then a new bill comes up that's completely unexpected.

Writing is not a profession, it's an addiction.

Obviously, psychologically, it would make all the difference in the world. But I think it would also make a big difference financially. If people understood, that, "Y'know, having all those things, that I was told I was supposed to have, to be successful, really is not a measure of success, and I can't have them anyway -" Yeah, that would make a big difference. It would've made a big difference, I think, in my life.

More often than not "fair" and "balanced" may be mutually exclusive

My real problem was certainly decisions I made, and the optimism that I had in making them. Y'know, I mean, I lived within this kind of nimbus of optimism, that, no matter what I encountered, I would always overcome it. Well, optimism can be your worst enemy as well as your best friend, but the other side of this is, that, y'know, expenses grow. But our incomes have not.

Today, the average family has enough financial reserves to keep going for about three weeks. That's it.

Yeah, we could have done things differently. But - If we'd done things differently, we wouldn't be who we are. We are the sum of the choices we make. Even the bad choices we make. I made a lot of bad choices, but on the other hand, I am who I am, and I'm proud of my work, and I'm proud of my family, and those are also the product of choices, including financial choices, that I made.