I write on weekends, on vacation, and, really - on deadline and on my floor. Both terrible for the back.

I have a disproportionate amount of faith in the goodness of the world and that everything will actually work out okay.

You feel like telling him you're not single in the way that he thinks you're single. After all, you have yourself.

Cats and their owners are on a private, exclusive loop of affection. Thus cats have become symbolic of a community eschewed and a hyper-engagement with oneself. They represent the profound danger of growing so independent in New York that it's not merely that you don't need anyone - it's that you don't know how to need anyone.

I like to try to do a little work before I do anything in the morning, even if it's a paragraph.

I definitely rediscovered reading for pleasure by devoting such a large swath of my time to sitting on airplanes. I am now painfully adept at removing my shoes so as to have the least amount of foot surface area touching an airport floor.

My A-number one visceral fear is speed. More than knives or snakes or confined spaces. Speed. I won't even go on a motor boat if I can help it.