My mind is stuffed with . Lines, couplets, paragraphs, stanzas; Bessie Smith, Stevie Smith, Tin Pan Alley, rock and roll. They tease or lead or hurl me into a dream space of jostling languages that I need to bask in each day in order to write.

When I die there may be a paragraph or two in the newspapers. My name will linger in the British Museum Reading Room catalogue for a space at the head of a long list of books for which no one will ever ask.

I rarely tweet unless I'm talking about 'The Bachelor.' I have a love/hate relationship with Instagram, though - it's like a rigid parent. It's much more restrictive with what can be posted, but you can write a full paragraph, post a video - it changes the game a little bit.

In the world of opinion writing, there's something called the 'to be sure' paragraph. A sort of rhetorical antibiotic, it seeks to defend against critics by injecting a tiny bit of counter-argument before moving on with the main point.

Every weekday morning, I picture my first paragraph while I hike with my dog Milo near Mulholland Drive, looking out over the San Fernando Valley. I edit the paragraph, then memorize it, so that when I get back home and sit down at my computer, the blank screen's tyranny lasts only a second or two. A brief reign!

Having imagination it takes you an hour to write a paragraph that if you were unimaginative would take you only a minute.

I've kind of changed my diet, but in my diet rulebook, on section 5 paragraph A, there's a cheating plan. So, Corky's BBQ is one of my favorite spots to go to.

If you want to lose 40 pounds, you order salad instead of fries. If you want to be a better friend, you take the phone call instead of screening it. If you want to write a novel, you sit down and write a single paragraph. It's scary to make major changes, but we usually have enough courage to take the next right step.

I think that if you have a knack for storytelling, and you work really hard at it, you'll have a chance to tap into something deep. But the fact remains that good sentences are hard won. Any writer worth a lick knows constructing a sentence, a paragraph, or a chapter is hard work.

"I suppose I've overdosed on ideas more than a couple of thousand times in my lifetime and, all things considered, am still functioning exceptionally well. I'm busy with projects, and my mind, powered by an unlimited source of Inspirational, is still working on overdrive exceeding natural thought limits. I suppose that was a good buildup for the punchline, a fairly good verbal drumroll for the climax, and a good preparation paragraph predecessor to the grand finale:

"life's not a paragraph

My sentence was that I wrote too many paragraphs in life that I never even read.

If you ask me to tell you anything about the nature of what lies beyond the phaneron? my answer is "How should I know?"? I am not dismayed by ultimate mysteries? I can no more grasp what is behind such questions as my cat can understand what is behind the clatter I make while I type this paragraph.

I like to try to do a little work before I do anything in the morning even if it's a paragraph.

Having imagination it takes you an hour to write a paragraph that if you were unimaginative would take you only a minute.