If you start to just aim for what the audience wants to hear, you're already hamstrung because you don't have any freedom.

One of the big tensions in my life is that I have known the stresses of financial hardship since I was a little kid, and it is the cancer for which I am seeking a cure.

Some people are born with a brain that has this weird, magical mathematical thing that makes them an amazing jazz musician.

I watch mediocre shows that have been on for three or four seasons, and feel angry at them.

I always find it kind of more interesting when people ask questions like, "What were you like as a kid?" Or just kind of personal history stuff, like, "What was the lowest point of your life?" Because that would be like, "Huh, well, I'd have to think about that one." And then give an honest answer. I think a lot of people don't want to give honest answers, or they just are in business showbiz mode when they're talking about stuff, so that's probably why a lot of that kind of thing doesn't get asked.

I actually find something rewarding about that tension between satisfying myself and satisfying others. Because first of all, I can't provide my own structure, and that tension provides a structure for me to actually work within.

When I would work freelance in production in Chicago, there were a lot of times when I was working for cheap, bad people, and I was working for slave wages anyway, so there were some times when I might have filled out a couple of blank taxi receipts and kept some petty cash. But like I say, I was very selective. It was only people that I thought were assholes. The people that I liked I went far and above saving them money, much less taking it. But that's it. I'm pretty moral. I don't even like stealing jokes.