I don't know why, but I always feel a kind of necessity to write things that are beyond acceptance, that are too offensive or something. For people to read them and say, Ha-ha-ha, very funny. No, we can't print that.

You can't do the end of the world in a conventionally dramatic way or Boy Meets Girl way.

After Strangelove I also started work on an adaptation of The Collector.

I learned not to care ... and to write for an imaginary reader whose tastes were similar to my own.

Sometimes we would be staked out in the middle of the river, several barges tied together. So we could party.

I like to work at night.

David Burnett was the son of Martha Foley, who edited the Best American Short Stories series. She hired me to work with David and her to read stories for the anthology.