The line of gray along the horizon is brighter now, and with the coming light I feel a certainty: that there is, despite our wild imaginings, only one life. The ghostly others, no matter how real they seem, no matter how badly we need them, are phantoms. The one life we're left with is sufficient to fill and refill our imperfect hearts with joy, and then to shatter them. And it never, ever lets up.

People sometimes get in the habit of being loyal to a mistake.

Have you ever noticed that when people use the expression 'I have to say', what follows usually needn't be said?

At the risk of appearing disingenuous, I don't really think of myself as 'writing humor.' I'm simply reporting on the world I observe, which is frequently hilarious.

If my career continues along its current arc, people will probably look at me and see a writer who is obsessed with the relationship between rich and poor and with how the rich somehow or other always manage to betray the poor, even when they don't mean to.

...aware, as always, that the truth isn't much of substitute for a good answer.

People who imagine themselves to be self-made seldom enjoy examining the process of manufacture in detail.