We come from long lines of people destined never to meet.

My job is to have new ideas and take risks every day, so I'm always looking forward to the next thing being done or making the next thing that I haven't yet gotten to. That's sort of the constant in my life.

I definitely wanted much more normalness than what was around me.

When I was fifteen, a dark shape came into my room at night. It was dark, but it glowed, which is the first of many facts you will have to tackle with your imagination. It wasn't in the shape of a person, but right away I knew it was like a person in every way except for how it looked. As it turns out, our looks are not the main thing that makes us human.

I actually don't have a great surplus of ideas. Some evolve very slowly, over many years, but I sort of trust that all of the interesting ones will become something that I eventually end up doing.

It occurred to me that everyone’s story matters to themselves, so the more I listened, the more she wanted to talk.

I like embracing kind of normal forms but am always trying to approach them as if no one's ever done that before. As if I'm literally the first person to ever write a book.