These are such First World problems, but there's a certain claustrophobia to New York. You don't escape in the East Village, but it at least feels full of camaraderie and youth - or full of camaraderie and youth in an East Village that is as full of Chase banks and Starbucks as the Upper West Side, or anywhere else in Manhattan.

I spent a lot of time in a small town in France, growing up.

I played the piano growing up and then stopped for 10 or 12 years.

My dad's French, and I spent my summers in France growing up. So I speak French fluently, and obviously, I speak English because I was raised in New York, and I grew up here.

Much as there are things about our own life stories that we can learn only from the systematic study of our dreams, there are things about the human condition that we can learn only from a systematic study of literature.

I always put a lot of priority on my education, even if that means taking classes after work or on the weekends.

When you have solved the problem of controlling the attention of the child, you have solved the entire problem of its education.

The Da Jing street market is little more than a few narrow intersections, barely six blocks long. But for a visitor, it is a living, breathing education in Shanghai cuisine, a style distinguished by its thick savory sauces spiked with sugar and soy sauce.