It was an act of devotion. A little like writing or loving someone — it doesn’t always feel worthwhile, but not giving up somehow creates unexpected meaning over time.

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 walked down the hall and saw that [she] was sitting on the floor next to a chair. This is always a bad sign. It's a slippery slope, and it's best just to sit in chairs, to eat when hungry, to sleep and rise and work. But we have all been there. Chairs are for people, and you're not sure if you are one.

The idea that you might end up in a job that doesn't allow you to be who you are, over the course of a lifetime, is still one of the most chilling nightmares to me. It's a good metaphor for fears I have about losing my soul in some accidental, mundane way. So, to me, these jobs that my characters have are very loaded. They immediately suggest a complex character to me, a woman who is, say, a secretary, but also a vigilante on behalf of her own soul.

Was she terrifyingly beautiful? Was she so ignorant she didn't deserve the truth? Was she also a liar and thus it was something they did together? I don't believe in psychology; which says everything you do is because of yourself. That is so untrue. We are social animals, and everything we do is because of other people, because we love them, or because we don't.

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

Thus far, everything I've made has come out of my really feeling it, out of the fire of my life.