"If my career continues along its current arc, people will probably look at me and see a writer who is obsessed with the relationship between rich and poor and with how the rich somehow or other always manage to betray the poor, even when they don't mean to."

"About 15 years ago I went though a period of a year or so when I just couldn't find anything good. My wife noticed I was having trouble reading menus. I bought some cheap reading glasses in a drug store. I got home and suddenly all these books that weren't good were good."

"At the risk of appearing disingenuous, I don't really think of myself as 'writing humor.' I'm simply reporting on the world I observe, which is frequently hilarious."

"Movies have to handle time very efficiently. They're about stringing scenes together in the present. Novels aren't necessarily about that."

"If I can make a teacher's salary doing comedy, I think that's better than being a teacher."

"If ever I want to amuse myself with an idiot, I have not far to look for one. I laugh at myself."

"One can know a man from his laugh, and if you like a man's laugh before you know anything of him, you may confidently say that he is a good man."

"Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine."