JOEL STEIN

Psychologists call this the online disinhibition effect, in which factors like anonymity, invisibility, a lack of authority, and not communicating in real time strip away the mores society spent millennia building. and its sweeping from our smartphones into every aspect of our lives.

I'm not that clued into what people are that touchy about and how many of them there are and how niche these niches are.

When I lose my column again, I'm sure I'll get hungry again. Maybe it's having a kid, but it's probably just getting to do what I always wanted to do - I'm really not that hungry.

I would be at home reading, because I felt so disconnected from humanity.

I hate walking up to strangers.

When wine drinkers tell me they taste notes of cherries, tobacco and rose petals, usually all I can detect is a whole lot of jackass.

I don't read the "letters" section of Time magazine. I think it's just my habit as a reader. I don't read comments on stories, in general.

The fun thing about journalism is if you go do a story about something, you can now ask three intelligent questions about it. Or say three intelligent things. And that gets people talking.

Being in New York and having worked at Time Out New York and then being at Time, living in New York for a long time has helped because I know everybody. And they're the people who call me and give me jobs. So that kind of real networking, which is just living in a place and having jobs where people around you are extremely successful, has helped me tremendously.

I'm good at marketing myself through the columns. But compared to other people I know, as far as networking and pushing yourself out there, I'm not very good at that.

You don't get anywhere without saying yes.

I've gotten thicker skin mostly from being older. You just stop caring quite as much about everything.

Reporting in general makes me pretty nervous. But I realized: all the amazing work experiences of my life were thanks to reporting. So that forces you to go do it.

I have some idea that if I pick on [boy band] One Direction, I'll get a ton of hate mail, because I know that when you're 15, you love a band like you will kill people. But I don't quite realize that that's true about people - adults - who read The Hunger Games.

You really, really have to care about animals to want to kill one. You have to learn all this stuff about them and start thinking like them.

The people who get places in life just say yes to everything.

I think I realized that Dave Barry was funnier than I'll ever be, and he made no attempt to make any actual points. He had a general libertarian point of view, but in general, he just liked to make jokes.

You can get away with stuff in a one-page story that you can't get away with in a book.

I wish I'd legitimately talked about some painful moments in my life where I felt insufficient as a kid.

It's hard to discipline yourself not to explain yourself or apologize.

I don't like to be in the forest. It's a weird thing. I've learned to have a general appreciation for nature, which has taken a while. But the forest, I still don't really love.

You have to live among rich liberals to understand what they're saying. You'll never believe what they mean by 'middle class.' They mean themselves.

If you're at my level and you go to a bookstore, even a good turnout is not that many people. Sometimes it is. But for the most part, it's not a huge turnout.

I love sushi, but I'm not going to write a column about it.

When Time got rid of my column, I thought it was all over. It was really sad. And then, I just started pushing it to lots of places. And I thought someone would run my column, I thought it was popular, and no one wanted it.