Knowledge is the driving force that puts creative passion to work.

I'd like to believe an accumulation of experience has made me a sort of a grown-up person, so I can have judgment and taste and whatever.

I became a set designer for opera. I'm a great opera buff, I love classical music, and I needed a time-out.

I know there are supposedly happy people in this world. I never believed it, but I take it for granted. God knows, they're all on television.

It was a very difficult time. I was working on [umble-Ardy] when my partner and friend was dying of cancer. We set up a room in the house to be like a hospital room. Eugene died, and then I had bypass surgery. I was doing the book to stay sane while all this was going on.

It's only adults who read the top layers most of the time. I think children read the internal meanings of everything.

I was a very sickly child. My parents were immigrants. They were not decorous. They were not discreet. They always thought I was gonna die.