Since I am a repressed person, and was raised a serious Presbyterian, and always feel a set of serious guidelines hanging above me, I love stories of poor impulse control, especially when they come from the person who made the mistakes. I collect them. I love the moment when someone fucks up so bad that they have to pay for the consequences. One of my friends told me his girlfriend was arrested for mouthing off to a cop, so he told his father.

“My dad was kind of excited,” he said. “He said, 'come on, it's about time you learned how to bail someone out of jail.' And he was right, it came in completely handy later on.” I made him tell me all about it, getting the bail bondsman, putting up the money,

I remember reading that Carl Jung was fascinated by the moments when people say, "I don't know why I did it." Why did that man sneak into a woman's house and superglue his face to her sleeping foot? Why did that man expose himself to a man dressed in a bear costume? Why did that woman suddenly steal all those hair curlers? He spent a part of his career - the part that wasn't as focused on archetype and symbols - trying to figure it out. I have no idea what his conclusions were

Sometimes I think you must just assign things, good and bad, to an aspect of human nature, not to a series of psychological agents interacting in the mind. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Then I think of the future. They're not going to let us off the hook; they're going to look back at our wars, at our Sport Utility Vehicles, at our pundits and affairs, and say, “how could they be so stupid?” And ultimately they'll have to forgive us.