I was dyslexic as a child and it took me years to get passed that. I read a lot but it was hard and that didn't go away until my early-to-mid-twenties. So really what I was looking at were the photographs and the illustrations in magazines.

Every since high school I've been drawn to magazines.

Everybody thought New York was this hard, cruel place, and I found it to be an extraordinarily wonderful place filled with the most interesting people.

I couldn't sit down and write a novel or a short story - even now - because of my dyslexia. But I learned narration through movies.

Style is a way of talking about yourself.

There was a kind of cultural life in New York that wasn't as solidified as it is now, it wasn't as money-driven. If you look at the size of the successful art galleries compared to the size of galleries now - there was no such thing as the Gagosian Gallery or Pace Gallery. But it was a time when magazines were a vital part of American life, and Esquire gave me a free pass to every world - I could get to the art world, the theater world, the movie world. It allowed you to roam through the cultural life of New York City.

Style tells you a lot more about the truth than substance, because it comes at the truth in an oblique way, it comes in on a slant, it doesn't tell you what it is. It's unexpected and it makes you laugh and think.