You know, my problem is I can't say no to people, especially people who want to write me checks to do things.

I treat people who write me the way my friends and I all treat each other when we go to each other for advice, which is sometimes with supreme cruelty.

It's amazing, if you know what you want to say, how fast it is to write.

Sometimes I talk to religious people about my column or what I do, and I ask them to, you know, read 20 or 30 of them and then come tell me that the message at the heart of every column isn't, 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' In every possible sense.

Books are magic: you never know where they're going to end up.

So I don't feel particularly wealthy-but, you know, I pay my taxes and I know that I am.