I've always enjoyed making people laugh. But in order for me to be funny, I have to get ticked off about something.

We've always been fascinated with movie stars and singers, but the fascination with people who really have nothing to offer is something new.

My humour has always come from anger, but I have to make sure I don't just get angry and jump on a soapbox.

I won't be making any friends in the corporate suites.

You can do the best research and be making the strongest intellectual argument, but if readers don't get past the third paragraph you've wasted your energy and valuable ink.

To me, the newspaper business was a way to learn about life and how things worked in the real world and how people spoke. You learn all the skills - you learn to listen, you learn to take notes - everything you use later as a novelist was valuable training in the newspaper world. But I always wanted to write novels.