I don't like to say, "Oh, I don't like this kind of music." I like to listen to it and try to see what people who like it get out of it.

This is why people cry at the movies: because everybody’s doomed. No one in a movie can help themselves in any way. Their fate has already staked its claim on them from the moment they appear onscreen.

I'm so disconnected from an indie-rock community that I am the hermit people used to guess I was.

Anger is preverbal, so, by the time you're using words to express an angry feeling, you're already imposing loads of structure on that primal experience.

I worked the AV counter at the Roland Heights public library in the '80s. My best story from the library was the time a couple asked for a recommendation, and I recommended Raising Arizona and they absolutely hated it. They came back hungry for blood. I was on my lunch break and my boss came out and said, "Hey kid, you need to come talk to these people. They totally hate Arizona." And he said, "Arizona's a dog; nobody gets that movie."

There are real teachers out there; I don't pretend to have their mantle.

While writing is a mystical process, it's also work. If you show up to work five days in a row, nobody's going to pat you on the back - everyone does that. Well, do that with your writing. Just show up. Be there for it. When you get an idea, write it down somewhere and then be a steward of that idea.