I was a terrible loser growing up. I took it far too seriously. There were water works if I lost. I would go home and break it down in angry detail: How did I lose? What could I do next time?

I'm undefeated in Scrabble. I can figure out an opponent's strategy and mold mine to offset theirs. I play a couple times a week, and I'll often play a game on my bed by myself against myself, which I realize sounds completely mad.

I really do feel like Los Angeles is my home now and, as cliche as this sounds, I felt like I found myself here and I really know who I am now. There was a long period like I was drifting or floating through life, and now I feel like I have a definitive target - and future.

Ambition is a very good quality to have. Ambition and the competitive spirit go hand in hand.

Comedy can't be done in a vacuum, and you can't do it on your own. So if you have a community of people, it's a great symbiotic relationship.

Wrestlers give their bodies to their work. I don't know if I like the word 'crazy' here. What I would say is there are people who have a different relationship to their bodies than most people.

Walmart and other big-boxers could become the center of gravity for the conservation of goods, employ people with actual know-how, and develop deeper, longer term, more profitable relationships with their customers.

In college, I'd gone abroad to get away from a campus where I felt I didn't fit in. And I started writing fiction, at least in part, because it was a way to feel like I was around people, to feel the energy and hum of others' inner lives, without the real-time frustrations and difficulties of actual relationships.