ROSECRANS BALDWIN

In college, my wife did a study abroad in Nairobi, and I did the exact same program in Cape Town. For me, the experience of being in that other culture really set up a longing. When I'm traveling, things seem really sharp. You learn things ten times faster.

When I was a kid, we didn't eat in restaurants much, but a good report card meant my sister or I could choose anyplace in town for a dinner out, and I always picked Benny's, a dive bar near the train station, because they had the best nachos around.

Lunch is the best time of day to eat in Paris. Then you get to go walk it off afterwards.

Rosecrans is a family name - it used to be a last name in our family.

I actually don't think there is machismo in America, unless it's the cowboy type - the silent, smoking brooder.

Paris's neighborhoods, the arrondissements, are organized like a twist. They spiral from the river like toilet water flushing in reverse and erupting out of the bowl - a corkscrew or what have you, a flattened pig's tail, a whorling braid notched one to 20.

For years, I've felt an obligation to harvest an animal, since all my life I've so mindlessly consumed them. But that was from the safety of my desk.

By and large, the Mexican food in Paris is horrible.

That's the thing: once it's in their hands, it's not my book anymore, it's theirs. I have no idea what happens when they start to digest it. So when someone writes me to explain how they read it, what it was like, what they enjoyed, there's a thrill. Writers who don't make their email addresses public are missing out on something wonderful.

In our town, Halloween was terrifying and thrilling, and there was a whiff of homicide. We'd travel by foot in the dark for miles, collecting candy, watching out for adults who seemed too eager to give us treats.

I think the place we love the most is the Parc des Buttes Chaumont. It's in the 19th arrondissement. It's where I would go jogging and my wife, Rachel, and I would go for walks. It's appreciated by Parisians but it's not really known to tourists.

Frankly, it's depressing, each night sleeping in someone else's home. I miss having a roof to my name. Our situation isn't an 'All in the Family' cliche, but it's still easy to see reality in plain terms: I live with my in-laws, and I can't say when that will change.

My father-in-law has ear hair like a wolverine. It fans out from the auricles, wafting from the ridge lines like cilia, like gray feathered plumage.

Americans love popcorn, and their love doesn't quit.

I think one of my favorite things about Paris is the ever-present, nonstop beauty of the city. So I would just walk as much as possible.

My ambition was to be cosmopolitan. I grew up in the suburbs. I went to college in Maine. I had a dream in my head that if you wanted to be the most urbane, living-life-to-the-fullest kind of person, Paris was the place to be.

Venice, Italy, is one of my favorite cities, a place I've been lucky enough to visit twice.

My first novel, 'You Lost Me There,' has been described as a beach read. Tough bracket, beach reads. There's not much room for mistakes when you're competing against the sun for a person's attention.

The great thing about candy is that it can't be spoiled by the adult world. Candy is innocent. And all Halloween candy pales next to candy corn, if only because candy corn used to appear, like the Great Pumpkin, solely on Halloween.

Thanksgiving, our eminent moral holiday, doesn't have much for children. At its heart are conversation, food, drink, and fellowship - all perks of adulthood.

I never had the idea of moving to Paris and becoming something. I liked the idea of living in Paris because it seemed to have so many parts of life I really enjoyed. The people there seemed to prize literature and art, food and drinking, a more hedonistic way of living.

Bookstores don't exactly dot the American highway in the grand manner of Sbarros.

American-French relations, their pitch and volume, have always been influenced by the media.

My confession: I listen to great music very badly.

In Europe, it's common to hear about young professionals living with their parents. With the continent's high rents and taxes and its population density, it makes sense.