Not enough gets said about the importance of abandoning crap.

You will be fierce. You will fearless. And you will make work you know in your heart is not as good as you want it to be.

Where radio is different than fiction is that even mediocre fiction needs purpose, a driving question.

Many times I see you as a portrait of torture.

I think the most famous person I've ever met is Brad Pitt.

One reason I do the live shows - and the monthly speeches at public radio stations - is to remind myself that people hear the show, that it has an audience, that it exists in the world. It's so easy to forget that.

I don't like that whole "art should challenge you" thing. Because I don't feel like art actually does challenge you. I was a semiotics major at Brown, and there's this idea that stories are better, books are better, and movies are better if they cocked you off your axis and you were completely disoriented and you'd really have to rethink everything.