I often think about image, and image is something that - but in truth, the real artistic process, as I've understood it, is 95 percent intuitive, like seat-of-the-pants, at-the-moment decisions that you can't even explain, you know?

It's one thing to be a perfectionist when you're alone, but when you're trying to make it work in an ensemble that's a whole different deal.

I think people have come to expect that in artistic representation; that every work of art should be a work of extravagant hope.

I was a big and un-ironic fan of Dear Abby when I was a kid in Chicago. I think I sort of internalized her. So I have this inner Abby: cranky, proper, folksy yet scathing, with a beehive hairdo. But that's my issue.

I am trying to remember that things have certainly been crazier in human history and they may get crazier here and now, and [here I am trying to be optimistic] it's even a good thing, to be going through all of this, if only to be reminded that history hasn't stopped - human existence is as fundamentally unmanageable now as it ever was.

What evil does first in the world, maybe, is distract us from our pursuit of goodness.

Whatever happens, we can deal with it if we admit that it's happening and so on. So to be comfortable with what is - that is a real superpower.