When I was growing up, books took me away from my life to a solitary place that didn't feel lonely. They celebrated the outcasts, people who sat on the margins of society contemplating their interiors. . . Books were my cure for a romanticized unhappiness, for the anxiety of impending adulthood. They were all mine, private islands with secret passwords only the worthy could utter.

'Taxi Driver' was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I didn't become a weirdo and squawk like a chicken.

As I've said before, and I still hold to, I truly am the most boring person alive. And if there was a great investigation to be found at the end of the resume, it would be, the most boring person alive.

I had a prodigious life, living in a grown-up world when I was a child. But I think my abilities were about perceptiveness, and they were about examining psychology and examining people and relationships.

Privacy above all else. Some day, in the future, people will look back and remember how beautiful it once was.

My kids are young and my life with them is really stimulating and really full and significant.

It's a skill that people are born with. Either you're a focuser or you're a multitasky person. I am a full-focus person.