It was inconceivable to me as a child that I would be an adult. I mean, one assumed that it would happen, but obviously it didn't happen, or if it did, it happened when your back was turned, and then suddenly you were there. So I couldn't have thought about it much.

I stress character, character, character.

I'm not jaded. I never have been jaded. I've always been surprised at my success. I've always enjoyed it.

I had been reading a fabulous book [The Man Verdi, by Frank Walker] about [Giuseppe] Verdi, whom I adore.

My father could be very witty, even if the humor was always on the darker side of irony.

Bumble-Ardy looks like a happy book. That's the funniest thing about it. But this was survival. I was working very hard to survive.

All I liked to do when I was a kid was draw.