I am dismayed to realize that much of the advice I used to parcel out to aspiring writers has passed its sell-by date.

My inspiration is really very simple: I'm struck by things that I want to know more about. I really do react just as a curious person: who is this person? What's the story behind this situation? Why do people like this or dislike this thing?

One of my favorite activities as a teen-ager was to watch television over the phone with my best friend.

The biggest problem with working at a treadmill desk: the compulsion to announce constantly that you are working at a treadmill desk.

I'm always mystified by the day-to-day workings of entities like Twitter that provide framework but not content, but I suppose it could be compared to the U.S. Postal Service, which manages to keep a lot of people employed doing lots of stuff other than writing letters.

You could go crazy thinking of how unprivate our lives really are - the omnipresent security cameras, the tracking data on our very smart phones, the porous state of our Internet selves, the trail of electronic crumbs we leave every day.

I feel somewhat responsible for the Borders Books bankruptcy.