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.

The nursery rhyme ends when a spider comes along and frightens Miss Muffet straight off her tuffet. I have wondered about what kind of lesson this is for a young girl. If you're eating your curds and whey and a spider comes along, I don't think there's anything wrong with picking up a newspaper, smashing it, and going back to your breakfast.

I think it's hard to have a full-time job and write fiction, but for essays, you need to be in the world.

Life starts out with everyone clapping when you take a poo and goes downhill from there.

Juice cleansing has been all the rage for some time. And I used the word 'rage' advisedly; one must push a violent flood of liquidised vegetables and fruit through one's system for at least three days in order to perform a 'cleanse.'

For me, nothing brings out my 'born yesterday' idiotic qualities quite like having my photograph taken.

When you spin a globe and point to a city and actually go to that city, you build an allowance of missed opportunities on the back end.