I think there is a complicated side effect to overcoming evil in that we are forever changed by it. I think after we ingest some of the cruelty of the world, it takes years off of our lives, but it also gives us wisdom and a little grace, hopefully a sense of compassion.

I don't put big concepts on my work, and it's all often about keeping actors in a room together and not letting them leave.

Fifteen years ago I killed my sister.

I don't mind him not talking so much, because you can hear his voice in your heart; the same way you can hear a song in your head even if there isn't a radio playing; the same way you can hear those blackbirds flying when they're not in the sky

I find that more and more I'm trying to entertain myself when I'm working, because I know the work's going to go to a horrible place.

When I kicked in the first TV – a nineteen-inch Magnavox with wicker speaker panels – it felt like the most perfect thing I had done in a long time. And there's nothing like the feeling of perfection that will inspire repeated behavior.

What I've learned in the last few years is that I am merely a storyteller.