"Sometimes you're not even sure which of your stories were failures. There are things I've written that I thought were complete catastrophes when I finished with them that have gone on to generate some of my most positive feedback."

"I was a very sickly kid. While I was in the hospital at age 7, my Dad brought me a stack of comic books to keep me occupied. I was hooked."

"I became an art major, took every art class my school had to offer. In college, I majored in Advertising Art and Design."

"A true friend is someone who is there for you when he'd rather be anywhere else."

"The Arab-Israeli conflict is also in many ways a conflict about status: it's a war between two peoples who feel deeply humiliated by the other, who want the other to respect them. Battles over status can be even more intractable than those over land or water or oil."

"Whatever I'm doing, I'm in that moment and I'm doing it. The rest of the world's lost. If I'm cooking some food or making soup, I want it to be lovely. If not, what's the point of doing it?"

"Everyone would be healthier if they didn't eat junk food."

"Urban conservationists may feel entitled to be unconcerned about food production because they are not farmers. But they can't be let off so easily, for they are all farming by proxy."