At risk of sounding foully pompous I think that writers' groups are probably very useful at the beginning of a writing career.

Writing is a solitary occupation.

So the books have a greater appeal to a British audience, but that hasn't stopped them making best-seller lists in places like Brazil, Japan and at least a dozen other countries.

Looking back, of course, it was irresponsible, mad, forlorn, idiotic, but if you don't take chances then you'll never have a winning hand, and I've no regrets.

The way that customers pay businesses is constantly evolving. Instead of paying with paper, like cash and checks, businesses are expected to accept a variety of payment methods ranging from credit cards to digital payments.

I didn't launch the website with any goals in mind, to be honest. I didn't know that it would have been anything other than a digital portfolio once I graduated college.

No longer do companies study consumers' psyches only by asking people what they think about technology and how they use it. Now they conduct observational research, dispatching anthropologists to employ their ethnographic skills by interviewing, watching and videotaping consumers in their natural habitats.

I did not grow up in a cosmopolitan environment. I grew up in a little town in the middle of nowhere, pre-Internet, pre-college radio.