The Melancholy Korean

"One last question."

"Yes?"

"If you could pick one writer who influenced your life, not your writing, necessarily, but your life..."

"Not Stephen Dedalus?"

"A writer."

(silence)

"Somerset Maugham."

"Really?"

"Yes.  Is that odd?"

"No, but..."

"Maugham taught me everything I know about women."

(silence)

"Let me see if I have this straight. Heh."

(silence)

"Everything you know about women is from a writer who was the most famous closeted homosexual of his generation?"

(silence)

"Well, I didn't realize that at the time."