You won’t believe the one thing Roz Chast says you’ll forever regret: Leaving the city for the suburbs!

Roz Chast, across decades of her cartoons for The New Yorker, as well as her own books, particularly the classic “Can’t We Talk About Something Nicer?” has proven to be one of the funniest and most acute observers of the follies and anxieties of modern urban life. She has now taken her gaze away from the streets and characters of her beloved New York City and focused it on her own sleeping mind. Chast’s next book, “I Must Be Dreaming,” is a collection of cartoons and observations written about her own dreams, others’ ideas about dreams, and generally confusing things related to dreams. But Chast is Chast, and the sleeping world she describes is only slightly more absurd (and equally fun and profound) than waking life. “There are many different ways to look at dreams,” says Chast, who is 68 years old. “But for me, the most important question is probably why do we dream?”

I guess when I say “helpful,” I’m thinking of catharsis or solving your problems. For me, it’s more about making sense of the world around you. I don’t think it’s the same as catharsis. Trying to understand who you are, what your… I hate using the word “values.”

Why do you hate the word values? I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.

Are you talking about death? Court! Oh! No. What is that word you just used? Deaf? Net?

Is the thought of death or your own death too much to even hear? No, actually it’s kind of obsessive. I don’t know how we stop thinking about it. When you’re 4 or 5 years old and you find out about it, the idea that you’re just not here doesn’t make any sense. It is a kind of nonexistence that we cannot even conceptualize. As I get older, I think about it more and more because it seems less and less abstract. People you know start to die. Not that that means it’s going to happen to me. [Laughs.] Because it really isn’t, but still.

I thought working on the book about the death of your parents would have made you feel a little more comfortable with the idea. [Sighs.] Not precisely. It remains a giant mystery. It is something that each person has to deal with. I can’t even say “come to terms.” Some enlightened swami who has transcended the binary of being alive and being dead may be okay with death, but I am not.

“Sandwich”? Simply “sandwich”. “Roz, are you bringing ‘snack’ next week?” God, the cut oranges. It is awful. Sometimes there were fundraisers and I remember one time I had to flip burgers or something. I had never done this. The night before I could barely fall asleep. She was having a lot of anxiety about it. I thought, “I know this is going to turn out really bad.” I just wasn’t cut out for this stuff! I could barely drive. These people made me feel very uncomfortable. All of it: horrible. I’m sorry, I wish I could be more. Yes, it was really fun!

Did you like it anything about it? Oh, here’s a fun thing: you can drive to the supermarket and put your groceries in your cart and then take it back to your car and then drive home. I had spent many years carrying shopping bags. Because this was the old days: there was no DoorDash or anything like that. You’d have to go to D’Agostino’s or Fairway and carry those giant bags of groceries, and your fingers would be stiff from holding them. That’s why driving to the supermarket is still a great pleasure.

Will my nagging feeling that moving to the suburbs somehow represents a personal failure ever go away? It must be repressed. [Laughs.] Repress it deeply. Let’s say you’re doing it for your kids and stuff like that. Plus, eventually, when you’re old and gray, maybe you’ll find a one-bedroom apartment in the city, like I did. It’s great. And what happens if the bathroom ceiling falls? I needed to get back to the city. For me, a lot of this has to do with not having to drive. Because not driving when you live in the suburbs, or being almost a driver, worries me a lot, and when I’m in the city I can go wherever I want. I feel free. I feel like a real adult.

What’s with driving? Yuck! There’s the car itself: tires falling off, a blowout, a car exploding. One time I was driving and the front hood started rattling and the whole trip I imagined the hood of the car flying up and then crashing and not only killing myself but killing tons of people. I hate it! I hate changing lanes. I hate merging. I hate trucks. Everything about it is hateful. Besides, you go so [expletive] fast! One small miscalculation and it’s a disaster.

I know you’re not particularly religious, but are you? Do you think your work demonstrates a Jewish sensibility? It is New York as much as it is Jewish.

where do you draw that line? Yes where do Do you draw that line? But a lot of the people I draw are in an apartment. It’s like I’m not imagining them on a hiking trail. If they were on a hiking trail, they wouldn’t be very happy about it. They would say, “Are you sure we’re still on the path? Do we have reception here? Did you bring the bug spray? I need more spray. Why did you bring the organic spray? It does not work. “Now I know that I have contracted that horrible disease that can be contracted through mosquitoes.”

I know you’re a bit of a hypochondriac. How was the pandemic for you? I learned to cook in a skillet, so in a way I would say the pandemic was worth it.

Did it cause any phobias? I mean, it was terrifying. Some of that fear I’ve probably put on a high shelf in the closet to look at later, if you know what I mean.

But do you need an outside project to focus on to calm yourself down? What if you’re just sitting at home and thinking? Oh no, that’s not so good. [Laughs.] Trouble ahead!

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity from two conversations.

David Marchese is an editor at the magazine and a columnist for Talk. He recently interviewed Alok Vaid-Menon on transgender everyday life, Joyce Carol Oates on immortality and Robert Downey Jr. on life after Marvel.