Come to think of it, Pasadena's as good a place to die as any.

I've yet to meet a writer who could change water into wine, and we have a tendency to treat them like that.

It's impossible not to be taken in by the spectacle of oneself, which is the biggest sin of the culture right now.

I went to Spago once, eight years ago. I had just closed a deal. I thought it would be fun to go to Spago and it wasn't. I got a bad table and nobody paid any attention to me.

On one level, nothing's really changed in my life. I still drive my daughter in the car pool on Monday. But it's impossible not to be aware of this rush of attention; it's impossible not to be seduced by it once you've entered into it, seduced by being unhappy when the attention wanes.

One of the things I learned from my father, and it did not serve me well at all, was that he was a successful writer, he earned a living. And it was a shock for me to find out that it was actually hard to make a living as a writer.