You’re trying to find new ideas in people. I always think to myself, what question I am least comfortable asking the person? And then I make sure I ask it early in the interview.
The essays are very solipsistic and self-absorbed, I’m totally conscious of that. To me, book writing is fun, and I basically just write about things that are entertaining to myself.
In baseball and sex, cliches are usually true: pitching beats hitting, and people always want to be loved by anyone who doesn’t seem to care.
If you’re doing an interview, you need conversational tension. After you talk to them, you’re not going to have a relationship with them, they’re not going to like you, they’re not going to be your friend.
I feel sorry for people who have to edit me. Which is why book writing is by far the most enjoyable. Really the only thing it’s based on is whether it’s good or not. No book editor, in my experience, is getting a manuscript and trying to rewrite it.
I care about strangers when they’re abstractions, but I feel almost nothing when they’re literally in front of me.
In the Far East, it’s very normal for people to wear masks in flu season. I don’t know if I’d ever do that, though, because I don’t like having things on my face.
The biggest hurdle to writing Fargo Rock City was that I couldn’t afford a home computer – I had to get a new job so I could buy a computer. It could all change though. In five years, I could be back at some daily newspaper, which wouldn’t be so bad.
What’s hard to do is describe why you like something. Because ultimately, the reason things move people is very amorphous. You can be cerebral about things you hate, but most of the things you like tend to be very emotive.
When I’m walking around, I’m usually drinking pop, so I can’t have a mask on. That’s why I couldn’t be a surgeon.
Even eternally free people are enslaved by the process of living.
I tend to equate sadness with intelligence.
Soccer is like punk rock: The product is not necessarily terrible. The problem is the fan base.
The biggest problem in rock journalism is that often the writers main motivation is to become friends with the band. Theyre not really journalists; theyre people who want to be involved in rock and roll.
If you can’t swim, the idea of being in nine feet of water is terrifying, much less the ocean.
Football allows the intellectual part of my brain to evolve, but it allows the emotional part to remain unchanged. It has a liberal cerebellum and a reactionary heart. And this is all I want from everything, all the time, always.
Book writing is a little different because, in my case, my editor is a year younger than me and basically has the same sensibility as me.
Anyone who claims to be good at lying is obviously bad at lying. Thus – as a writer myself – I cannot comment on whether or not writers are exceptionally good liars, because whatever I said would actually mean its complete opposite.
The Sims is an escapist vehicle for people who want to escape to where they already are, which is why I thought this game was made precisely for me.
I am ready to be alone.