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So, the combination of looking at lots of different people and how they react to each other and how they relate to each other and waiting for that inspiration is the thing that allows me to keep writing.

I get inspired by my friends, and if a friend is a writer, that is even deeper.

Inspiration strikes at very funny times.

Witty inspirations are the proverbs of the educated.

I think I draw my inspiration from a lot of conversations that I had with people or my friends and combine them together with my own personal experience.

It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.

Some of the writers I admire who seem very, very funny and very emotional to me can develop a closeness with the reader without giving too much of themselves away. Lorrie Moore comes to mind, as does David Sedaris. When they write, the reader thinks that they're being trusted as a friend.

I suppose, the natural outgrowth about writing about two friends, it becomes about their friendship, and the complexities of it, and the way personality plays off each other, and what they each like to do, separately and together.

All the details of the life and the quirks and the friendships can be laid out for us, but the mystery of the writing will remain. No amount of documentation, however fascinating, can take us there.

It's no use imagining that bringing great writers together inevitably precipitates great conversation.