I'm of a generation that romanticizes and maybe even over-romanticized things that were painful, that hurt others. I feel that. But I don't know if I have any regrets.

I think there's a great storytelling tradition in the restaurant business that tends to attract people with an oral tradition of bulls - ting and bollocking. Creative people, people for whom the 9-to-5 world is not attractive or impossible. It seems that way. There are a lot of stories in the business, and a lot of characters - and it seems to attract its share of artists and writers and people who hope to do something creative in their lives.

I'd love to play bass with Parliament Funkadelic, but I can't play bass, so I don't think that's going to happen.

In that sense, what a great way to live, if you could always do things that interest you, and do them with people who interest you.

The Italians seem to have a better attitude with kids and the food is great!

There is no Final Resting Place of the Mind.

When you're shooting that fast end to end, you wake up in a hotel and you don't know where you are. You're dreaming of Singapore, you wake up in Hong Kong. Or you just lose track. It's one of the reasons I'm staying in hotels that I know I've stayed in before, and they don't look like other hotels.