In order to execute the idea, you need a certain material that is going to allow you to do what you're challenged to do in your imagination. You should use whatever you can and it's amazing how even if you change the medium, your work is still yours.

In fact, in the history of a lot of cultures there is a theater. For example, there are the theaters in Java, [Indonesia] and of that area where they use puppets and they have backgrounds and shadows.

I have lots of objects. Every object has a story, which makes me think I should write a story about every object.

Mexico doesn't seem alien to Californians.

The cultures of the Americas were extremely complex and interesting, with their own languages and observatories to watch the stars. The more you know about them the more you realize how extremely impressive they were. Bloodthirsty, though, I think they were as well.

I veer more toward the philosophical and the poetic than I do toward the alert and angry.

I've always liked New York even before I lived in New York. It represents something, I think, and it would be trite to say what it represents really because it's been said so many times.