A lot of young poets today, from what I've heard and experienced, can't get their heads past George W. Bush, and I've heard so many poems about this democracy and this era of politics that I'm kind of bored by it

As someone who was born and raised in Los Angeles, I was really interested in the idea of people who move here to get into the business, and some of them do become famous and then oftentimes they fall out of that fame in very terrible ways.

I think any time you have too much education in one certain field, that can sometimes play against you

I don't think it's always good to read lots of poetry

People in real life cuss God out when they're angry. That's all real.

I tried not to make God this big deal in Joan's life. She treats God like a friend: she's nice to him some days, and other days mean, and then cries when she needs help.

We hung out a lot together. We went and saw films together. It was really actually quite easy. I think we were all very subconsciously connected in knowing that we needed to make it important, and therefore it just became important and it worked. Everybody had a lot of respect for each other. I think respect is the most important thing you can have.