There is a dysfunctional strangeness to Los Angeles that doesn't exist in any other western city. The roads are crumbling, no-one knows what they're doing, the city government barely works.

I think that growing up very poor in a very wealthy town gave me a sense of being an outsider, and I hated it when I was growing up.

I think the most exciting thing is access to information. People's ability to document things and expose things that may have not otherwise been documented and exposed. All the information you want is available instantly, which is overwhelming, but I think can have a positive change on the political process and accountability for leaders and corporations.

Britney [Spears]'s actually kind of like a broken-down shell of a human being, that's what makes her so endearing and compelling.

'Arbitrary' and 'odd' are the words which best describe the pattern of my career. I'm perpetually baffled by the whole thing.

If you're inclined to dismiss L.A. as a place of unrelenting vapidity and generic 1980s architecture, then you're doing yourself and L.A. a huge disservice, and you're just not looking hard enough.

When I was growing up I was an atheist, then an agnostic, and then I had a good eight or ten years of being quite a serious Christian.