'Why do you think it is...', I asked Dr. Cook ... 'that brain surgery, above all else-even rocket science-gets singled out as the most challenging of human feats, the one demanding the utmost of human intelligence?' [Dr. Cook answered,] 'No margin for error.'

If you were to rush into this room right now and announce that you had struck a deal - with God, Allah, Buddha, Christ, Krishna, Bill Gates, whomever - in which the ten years since my diagnosis could be magically taken away, traded in for ten more years as the person I was before - I would, without a moment's hesitation, tell you to take a hike.

I take the medication for myself so I can transact, not for anyone else. But I am aware that it is empowering for people to see what I do and, for the most part, people in the Parkinson's community are just really happy that Parkinson's is getting mentioned, and not in a pitying way.

Vanity's really overrated. When I was 20, teenage girls had my picture on the wall... I don't need to be pretty anymore. I just am who I am.

The oldest form of theater is the dinner table. It's got five or six people, new show every night, same players. Good ensemble; the people have worked together a lot.

A creative mess is better than idle tidiness.

As for my own truncated secondary education, my head was in the clouds as my mom would say, or if you asked my father, up my ass.