Cigars Are the Perfect Literary Drug

At the end of a book, when I’m extremely exhausted, mentally fatigued, I sometimes sneak off into the yard and smoke a cigar, maybe six or seven times per book. That’s a bad habit I picked up when I lived in Berlin. … Occasionally, instead of having a Red Bull, as a twenty-year-old might, I resort to the Thomas Mann method, the Maria Mancinis, but not very often. Cigars are the perfect literary drug. I understand why Mann, Freud, and so many durable people smoked cigars. It really focuses the mind.

JEFFREY EUGENIDES