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" The truth is, I wrote a novel when I was 23. It's hideously bad. Truly rotten. "

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" There's an 'Everything must go!' emotional liquidation feel to the end of your twenties, isn't there? What will happen if we turn thirty and we're not 'ready?' You don't feel entirely settled in any aspect of your life, even if you are on paper. "

" I would gladly have accepted a heaping spoonful of nepotism when I got out of college and was looking for a job. "

" There's just no concept of layering a thick-sleeved sweater under a coat in L.A. A coat is more of a gesture than a necessity. You know, in case the temperature goes down to 55 degrees. "

" Being a writer is an endless study in human transition and lessons learned or forgotten or misapplied. "

" When you spin a globe and point to a city and actually go to that city, you build an allowance of missed opportunities on the back end. "

" I now know my right from my left and my up from my down. Unluckily, my terrible sense of direction remains. For me, to live in New York City is to never be able to meet someone on the northeast corner. It is to never ever make a smooth entrance, always to get caught looking lost on the street. "

" I think a lot of humor is about distracting yourself. Pretend you're not trying to make it funny. Because for some reason the effort to be funny smells like sulphur in our culture. "

" Yes. I am writing full-time. Which is strange. It feels like not having a job. "

" Because I am a horrible flincher, contact lenses are not an option. I'm always envious of contact-wearers. There are endless reasons to take off one's glasses during the day and, as I have grown older, what I don't see has become increasingly pronounced. "

" I use Ole Henriksen eye gel when I think of it, and go for facials when spa gift certificates appear as a professional thank-you or in a gift bag. Once ensconced in a facialist's chair, I let myself be coaxed into all sorts of treatments, because I'm there already, so why not? "

" For me, titles are either a natural two-second experience or stressful enough to give you an ulcer. If they don't pop out perfect on the first try, they can be really hard to repair. Or, worse, if the author thinks they pop out perfect, but the publishing house does not agree, it's difficult to shift gears. And then? Then you go insane. "

" For me, nothing brings out my 'born yesterday' idiotic qualities quite like having my photograph taken. "

" I think the rule of thumb should be this: if you preface a sentence about a friend with the phrase, 'I love X, but... ' more than once in any conversation, you should stop hanging out with them. "

" There is no such thing as a crazy dog person in New York. Are there people who are completely insane about their dogs? Hordes. But cat people may as well have whiskers and tails themselves. That's because their pets' lack of social need taps straight into our worst fears as the human inhabitants of New York. "

" When I was nine years old, I wrote a short story called 'How to Build a Snowman,' from which no practical snowperson-crafting techniques could be gleaned. The story was an assignment for class and it featured a series of careful but meaningless instructions. Of course, the building of the snowman was a red herring. "

" The Queen of Crafts herself, Martha Stewart, and I have the same birthday. I prefer to think it's the glue-gun wielding, perfect-tart-producing Martha and not the copper pan-throwing, jail-going Martha. But I suppose if I am going to share a calendar square with some of Martha, I have to share it with all of Martha. "

" Picture it in your mind's nostril: you get in a cab in time to catch twin thugs named Vomit and Cologne assaulting a defenseless pine-tree air freshener. "

" For the average person, taken to their sick bed, it takes a serious bout of pneumonia or a full body cast to completely forget the life they had prior to falling off the rollercoaster. I, however, will do this over a paper cut on my thumb, obsessing of said cut and being generally consumed by it. "

" Unless you are a professional, you will find the tart to be a high-maintenance, unforgiving whistle-blower of a pastry. "

" As most doctors will tell you, cleansing is ridiculous. You know what's been around longer than that state-of-the-art juicer? Your kidneys. And your liver. Still, the cleanse has recalibrated my definition of a splurge. "

" I can't see the forest through the trees, except the trees are people. "

" Like most citizens of popular and international urban centres, I don't take advantage of the cultural opportunities. Perhaps this comes from growing up in suburbia. Home is where you eat, sleep, read, watch television and ignore your parents. It is not where you go to the ballet and then attend a heated panel discussion about it afterwards. "

" The trick to scrambled eggs is to remove half the milk from the container and shake what's left as hard as you can, like a cocktail shaker, before you whisk it into the eggs. "

" The hardest thing is spending twelve hours a day accommodating the rest of the world, then going home at night and criticizing it. I would be curious about what I'd write if I didn't have to worry about offending. "

" Everything in New York seems to merit preserving. If it's not historical, it's personal. If it's not personal, it's cultural. But you can't. You can't save everything. You just have to pack it up in your brain and take it with you when you go. "

" As we grow up, it feels like you should either invite people into your life or not. There should be fewer and fewer instances of friends you 'can only take in small doses.' "

" Sometimes in New York, you're walking down the street and you realize there's a girl walking in front of you whose thighs you could hit a golf ball through, and maybe that makes you depressed. "

" In general, I prefer to record all traumas and save them for later, playing them over and over so they can haunt me for a disproportionate number of weeks to come. It's very healthy. "

" In New York and L.A., there is sort of that silent competition to be on the cutting edge of something. You end up having a conversation with how the world receives your work, especially if you are writing narrative, not fiction. Sometimes it is an awkward conversation. It's like group therapy. "

" Are there moments when I see unrequited crushes or ex-boyfriends slow dancing with their dates and kind of want to stab myself in the spleen with a salad fork? Yeah, sure. "