I don't think comic timing is the same as music timing, but I definitely find that I've learned from just writing in general that songs can be narrative without having a story.

She was feeling her bohemian oats.

You know, there's a moment when you're famous when it's unbearable to go out because you're too famous. And then there's a moment when you're famous just right.

I've been writing for a long time, since the late '60s. But it hasn't been in the same form. I used to write scripts for television. I wrote for my comedy act. Then I wrote screenplays, and then I started writing New Yorker essays, and then I started writing plays. I didn't start writing prose, really, until the New Yorker essays, but they were comic. I didn't start writing prose, really, until the '90s. In my head, there was a link between everything. One thing led to another.

You know, you're really nobody in L.A. unless you live in a house with a really big door.

Yeah, well, we're all writers, aren't we? He's a writer that hasn't been published, and I'm a writer who hasn't written anything.

There are few takers for the quiet heart.