Poverty makes it very difficult in an already competitive world for kids to get on a straight track where they can actually love learning.

I think what I am is a "convener"; I like to convene people around ideas.

Artists are the people that no matter what, pick up the pen, pick up a paintbrush. They take the time to translate what is happening to create something that resonates deeply with the rest of the people that are caught in the middle of their own reality.

A lot of acting techniques are very self-oriented.

I see myself as not a typical theater person, but a person who uses the theater as a place to meet people and explore ideas.

When I was a kid, my grandfather said that "if you say a word often enough, it becomes you." Thinking of that later in life gave me this idea that I could try to become America by learning the words of people from many aspects of the country.

I never know when somebody's going to knock on the door of my own unconscious in a way that I wouldn't have anticipated.