I deliberately did not read anything about the Vietnam War because I felt the politics of the war eclipsed what happened to the veterans. The politics were irrelevant to what this memorial was.

We know under Nebraska there is an underground aquifer that is probably underneath the whole state, but what form does it take? I kind of want to focus on that, for almost political means, because we keep digging more wells. We're not replenishing, and we're having a crisis in water around the world. But how do you visualize it? I don't know, so I know what I want to study.

When I was very little, we would get letters from China, in Chinese, and they' be censored. We were a very insular little family.

It's funny, as you live through something you're not aware of it.

How we are using up our home, how we are living and polluting the planet is frightening. It was evident when I was a child. It's more evident now.

Our lives are given meaning by our actions-accomplishments made while we are "here" that extend beyond our own time.

Nothing is ever guaranteed, and all that came before doesn't predicate what you might do next.