In this interview with The New Yorker, Judd Apatow talks about his writing inspirations, collection of new books he reads only 5% of, and a collection of short stories he recently edited called, “I Found This Funny.”

One of the better parts about the interview is a story Apatow shares about a charity event he put together right before “Knocked Up” was released. I found to be quite funny:

Years ago, I put together this benefit that was a parody of benefits, a fundraiser that raised $140,000 for 826LA. But the premise was we did the benefit before “Knocked Up” came out—before Seth Rogen became popular—and the evening was a tribute to Seth Rogen for the charity work he has not done yet. So we had everyone in show business show up for this charity event to honor someone that no one knew. We had tribute videos with Brad Pitt and Robert Evans telling him to please do charity in the future.

Apatow’s habits surrounding reading and writing are right up my alley. He’s got more new books than he’s read. He started reading impossibly long and difficult books in the beginning, but has recently settled for collections of short stories, which are less demanding of time and attention span. Ditto over here. Though, I did just power through the last 100 pages of “The Sirens of Titan” by Kurt Vonnegut tonight. A quality line from the book that is mostly unrelated to this Apatow interview, but an infinitely good one that’s worth a pondering:

‎"The worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody, would be to not be used for anything by anybody.“

Keep on reading and writing, my dear peoples.