"A costume party… great… a chance for the bimbos to whore themselves out with no penalty of conscience. I found myself excruciatingly curious as to what she was going as, a sailor? No. A pilot. That would be something."

"The Germany I was enthused with was more old fashioned and kind of romantic. I just got there, and the next thing you know, I had this huge gilded album. It was kind of an amazing experience because I didn't intend it to be that way."

"Perfection is a paradigm meant to keep us striving and learning and growing. Like a wondrous sunset, perfection may be beyond our reach, but it is within our view and well worth seeking after."

"I was thinking how complicated life is and how there are no simple roads or paths. We are a fabric of mistakes and hurts; a family tree of fumbled attempts, successes and failures."

"Complete people gaze into the blue sky above, plunge into the center of the earth below, and run freely in the eight directions without even a change of mood."

"I'm doin' something different. I mean, I talk a little bit about race and interracial dating, but it's not the heart of my act. I just try to do what I think is funny; there's no huge message or through line."

"I have no idea what a British sensibility or a British sense of humor is. I have no concept of what that is. I have no concept of what American sensibility is. I was born in Great Britain, but I was only there for six months, and we moved to Belgium, where I grew up."

"You write once and you can call yourself a writer, but it takes three novels before you can call yourself a novelist. The first two could have just been lucky. One day, I will finish my third, and one day, I will be a novelist."

"The popular view that a child forgets easily is not an accurate one. Many people go right through life in the grip of an idea which has been impressed on them in very tender years."