“For Liza, a greeting is an opportunity to make new friends. For me, it's yet more people I'll have to avoid.”

“Complaining is a lot like talking, only more constructive.”

“The only thing that's worse than people who say "I am what I am" is people who say "I yam what I yam" while doing a Popeye imitation.”

“People are always doing studies. Now there's one that says drinking coffee can lead to the prevention of memory loss in old age. This is terrible news. Drinking coffee is my greatest pleasure in life. That, and forgetting.”

“I’m sure now’s the time in my life to be doing a lot of things I’m not doing. I feel bad about that. But even worse is knowing that when i’m eighty-four I’ll look back on where I am now and think: those were the days.”

“To know makes me growNot to know harms meTo forget frees me.”

“That kind of thinking [that writers must alleviate their guilt for leading a creative life] is based on the idea that the creative life is somehow self-indulgent. Artists and writers have to understand and live the truth that what we are doing is nourishing the world. William Carlos Williams said, "It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there." You can't eat a book, right, but books have saved my life more often than sandwiches. And they've saved your life... But we don't say, oh, Maya Angelou should have silenced herself because other people have other destinies. It's interesting, because artists are always encouraged to feel guilty about their work. Why? Why don't we ask predatory bankers how they alleviate their guilt? ”