You have to really be courageous about your instincts and your ideas. Otherwise you'll just knuckle under, and things that might have been memorable will be lost.

If you're a person who says yes most of the time, you'll find yourself in the hotel business and the restaurant business.

I had been a kid that moved so much, I didn’t have a lot of friends. Theater really represented that kind of camaraderie.

I liked to work in a shop down in the basement and invent things and build gadgets.

Death is what makes life an event.

I have much to learn from my daughter Sofia. Her minimalism exposes my limitations: I'm too instinctive and operatic, I put too much heart into my work, I get lost sometimes in bizarre things - it's my Italian heritage.

I was the kind of kid that had some talents or ability, but it never came out in school.