I cannot smell mothballs because it's so difficult to get their little legs apart.

I was not naturally talented. I didn't sing, dance or act, though working around that minor detail made me inventive.

I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper.

You want to know how I think art should be taught to children? Take them to a museum and say, 'This is art, and you can't do it.

Through the years, I have learned there is no harm in charging oneself up with delusions between moments of valid inspiration.

Nothing I do is done by popular demand.

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.