Having an aura of menace is like having a pet weasel, because you rarely meet someone who has one, and when you do, it makes you want to hide under the coffee table.

I'm not very good at the accordion. If I played guitar, I wouldn't be on anyone's album. But because I play the accordion and no one else does, I end up doing strange things.

All his life, Klaus had believed that if you read enough books, you could solve any problem, but now he wasn't so sure.

Nobody wants to hear that you will try your best. It is the wrong thing to say. It is like saying 'I probably won't hit you with a shovel.' Suddenly everyone is afraid you will do the opposite.

I am so tired, I can hardly type these worfs.

You’re just jealous of me because I’m a tap-dancing ballerina fairy princess veterinarian!

Opera was an enormous part of my childhood. My parents were both opera buffs, and they met in the box seat of an opera performance. And I also was a boy soprano, so before puberty hit, I was onstage playing a wide variety of orphans and urchins in all sorts of operas, and the sheer melodrama of their stories was just always appealing to me.