The Greeks Had Invented Democracy, Built The

I Always Used To Reach For The Cigarette When The Phone Rang, And I Figured Nobody Would Ever Call Me In Tokyo. The Time Difference Is So Profound It's, Like, Already September In Tokyo, And I Figured Nobody Would Be Able To Work It Out.

I Would Still Be Reading Out Loud. I Think That If You Are Any Kind Of An Artist, Then Validation Is Just Sort Of... It Can Be A Result, But You're Going To Do The Work Anyway. Because You're Just Wired That Way. It's So Engrained, It's Such A Part Of Your Personality That You Don't Just Stop Doing It. Eventually I'll Retire On Some Level, Eventually No One Will Want To Buy My Books Or A Ticket To See Me Read, It's Inevitable That's Going To Happe

Writing Helped To Have Jobs That Involved Running Around, Pushing Things Like Dish Carts And Wheelbarrows. It Would Be Hard To Sit At A Desk All Day, And Then Come To Sit At Another Desk. Also, It Helps To Abandon Hope. If I Sit At My Computer, Determined To Write A New Yorker Story I Won't Get Beyond The First Sentence. It's Better To Put No Pressure On It. What Would Happen If I Followed The Previous Sentence With This One, I'll Think. If The Eighth Draft Is Torture, The First Should Be Fun. At Least If You're Writing Humor.

I Go To The Movies At Least Five Times A Week, And After A While Everything Becomes A Blur To Me.

This Left Me Alone To Solve The Coffee Problem - A Sort Of Catch-22, As In Order To Think Straight I Need Caffeine, And In Order To Make That Happen I Need To Think Straight.