What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Happiness is never perfect.

What is your greatest fear?

Being buried alive.

Which historical figure do you most identify with?

Cantinflas.

What is your favorite journey?

Actually, I don't own any of their records.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Honesty.

On what occasion do you lie?

Who needs an occasion?

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

"Do as I say and no one will get hurt."

What or who is the greatest love of your life?

My wife, Kathleen.

When and where were you happiest?

Nineteen sixty-three, one A.M., washing dishes on a Saturday night in the kitchen of Napoleone Pizza House, 619 National Avenue, National City, California.

Which talent would you most like to have?

Being able to fix the truck.

If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?

A bull in Wyoming.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

The floor just below that.

Where would you like to live?

Hotel Esmarelda, Storyville.

What is your favorite occupation?

Blacksmith, ventriloquist, magician, jockey, train conductor, tree surgeon, and lion tamer.

What is your most marked characteristic?

My ability to discuss, in depth, a book I've never read.

What is the quality you most like in a man?

Generosity, irony, bravery, humor, madness, imagination, and the ability to take a punch.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?

Good bones, sharp teeth, big heart, black humor, full of magic, plenty of forgiveness, and a good sport.

What do you most value in your friends?

Jumper cables and a tow chain.

Who are your favorite writers?

Rod Serling, Breece D'J Pancake, Charles Bukowski, Woody Guthrie, Bill Hicks, Fellini, Frank Stanford, Willie Dixon, Bob Dylan, O. Henry.

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?

Frankenstein. And Dumbo.

How would you like to die?

I don't think I would like it very much at all.