I've become a professional failure - in order to pay the mortgage I have to remain unemployed. Luckily, a disaster always seems to befall me at exactly the right moment.

America thinks of itself as a meritocracy, so people have more respect for success and more contempt for failure.

I miss being fawned over by restaurateurs and chefs.

I've become a professional failure - in order to pay the mortgage I have to remain unemployed. Luckily, a disaster always seems to befall me at exactly the right moment.

I've never been to a shrink. But my parents were very psychologically literate - my father had undergone Freudian analysis - and we often talked about other people in psychological terms, so I picked up a lot of that.

People in London think of London as the center of the world, whereas New Yorkers think the world ends three miles outside of Manhattan.

I tried being a mechanic and I tried catering, but I realized I had even less aptitude for semi-skilled labour than for academic work.