Shut your damn mouth.

If you want to be happy in life, consider yourself a student. Every day of your life, think: how can I improve?

I won't read a new graphic comic novel until the writer has completed the entire series. I got burned a few times when I got turned on to a book, plowed through it only to find out the author was in the middle of writing the next.

I think that purity creates not only a higher level of artistic vision but a purer work ethic.

For years I drove a big Ford F250 pickup. That was my ride because two-thirds of my work was wood work, and I'm always driving up to Northern California, where I harvest salvaged trees.

My wife, the actress Megan Mullally, was an English major at Northwestern University and loves fiction. Like so many things in my life, she curates things for me. For example, I have the daunting prospect of Donna Tartt's "The Goldfinch" waiting for me when I get through my current reading pile.

Turn off your computer and go out of doors. Dig a large enough hole to transplant a mature apple tree. Nurture the tree, feed it, coddle it so that its fruit will be ample, bright and firm. Practice open-hand strikes against the rough bark of the trunk until it's time to harvest. Choose the champion of your apple crop, pluck it from the tree, and beat yourself about the face and tits with it until your mettle will suffice.