Adam Mansbach

“I believe that writers have a responsibility to evolve the language, whether by introducing new words or new usages. Shakespeare alone is responsible for something like 3400 words and phrases.”

“My mother is really the person I learned to curse from. She discourages me from saying that in interviews. But it's true.”

“If anything, I was a prodigious eater of everything that was put in front of me. That was probably the only thing my parents wouldn't complain about.”

“'The Pushcart War' is presented as a history of a conflict that has not yet taken place; in each edition of the book, the date on which the hostilities commenced is nudged forward.”

“My daughter is a very adventurous eater. I'm not the guy who sits around lamenting that all my kid will eat it is Tater Tots and chicken nuggets. With my kid, it's more a capricious and whimsical decision-making.”

“One thing any DJ needs in his crate, especially at a barbecue, is a selection of 15-minute-plus jams.”

“When the kid goes to bed, you get a little bit of time for yourself and maybe your partner, so being delayed in that departure can be particularly frustrating.”

“I would like to think that I curse expertly - it's not something that I do without considering it. I never curse without intending to; it's not something I resort to because of inability to articulate or find the correct word.”

“When it comes right down to it, developing a critical sensibility about parenting isn't really about disapproval; it's about honing your own sensibilities, figuring out how you want to parent.”

“I like to read in the bathtub. Ideally, that bathtub would be located on a small Greek island.”

“Of course, the opposite of white privilege is not blackness, as many of us seemed to think then; the opposite of white privilege is working to dismantle that privilege. But my particular hip-hop generation proved to be very serious about figuring it all out and staying engaged.”

“The goal has been not to get pigeonholed. I like working in different genres. I'm gonna try to be entertaining and funny and do my usual thing.”

“It's hilarious to me that by writing an obscene fake children's book I am mistaken for a parenting expert.”

“A good cookout ought to last at least six hours; if you haven't eaten and gotten full and gotten hungry and eaten again, you're doing something wrong.”

“I've probably done more than a thousand interviews, and I can't remember what people asked me two months ago or two days ago.”

“The paradox of being in an industry where other people are usually the gatekeepers: publishers, editors - there are a lot of barriers to having control over your career. But coming out of hip-hop, the mindset was always to create your own.”

“I came up in hip-hop, where people value the ability to tell it straight.”

“While I'm working, I stick with music that won't distract me - the dub stylings of Scientist and King Tubby, maybe some Beethoven string quartets.”

“Writing novels is largely about endurance and patience. I take a lot of breaks, hit walls, and go do something else while I think things through. But I do it every day, and I try to treat it as a job, something that is not dictated by whimsy or muses.”

“For many families, gift-giving is a major source of stress - the relentless commercialism, the whining demands, the financial pressure.”