If there was ever a bigger pansy than my father, it was Marcel Proust.

Bechdel Test, was named for the comic strip it came from, penned by Alison Bechdel - but Bechdel credits a friend named Liz Wallace, so maybe it really should be called the Liz Wallace Test...? Anyway, the test is much simpler than the name. To pass it your movie must have the following: a) there are at least two named female characters, who b) talk to each other about c) something other than a man.

And partly, the worst thing you could do in my family was need something from someone. So physical strength represented an avenue of self-sufficiency to me.

It was a vicious cycle, though. The more gratification we found in our own geniuses, the more isolated we grew.

I'm not that good of a drawer. I don't know how people just draw stuff out of their head. I'm always creating schemes. If I have to draw someone sitting in a chair, I have to go find a chair, sit in it, and take a picture of myself sitting in it.

It's our very capacity for self-consciousness that makes us self-destructive!

I get to do for a living what I did as a child for fun, and that's pretty cool.