I'm passionate about music, food, books, film, blah, blah. The same things everyone is passionate about, no? Love, sex, connection. Peace. Not f - - g up our planet.

David Foster Wallace is a big idol of mine. His writing is so clear that for years I'd read him and think, My God, he is actually writing the way I think. He's describing the thoughts in my head. And then I realized, No, wait. He's just such a good writer, so transparent and articulate, that when he describes his thoughts, I think they're my own.

It's the good old paradox of democracy. We are individually pretty small drops in the bucket, but collectively we are all powerful.

Actually, here is something I'm passionate about that, looking around me, seems like the world at large must not care about as much as I do: craft.

For me, it works best to plan just enough to come up with a good direction to head out in. Then I start down the path as soon as I can, without a very clear idea of what exactly I'm going to end up with. I try to leave a lot of time for flexibility and play and changing direction.

I can't stand things that are poorly made or shoddily conceived. I feel like I'm being insulted when something is poorly designed, poorly made. It's like whoever made that thing didn't respect the rest of us enough to do it well.

I will say that the lead cosmonaut trainer - I mean, we were working with professional cosmonaut trainers outside of Moscow. And the lead one, at the end of the project, announced to the entire group that he wanted Trish [Sie] to be on his team forevermore.