It would have been hard for Fat Charlie to say exactly when the accumulation of birds on the wire mesh moved from interesting to terrifying. It was somewhere in the first hundred or so, anyway. And it was in the way they didn't coo, or caw, or trill, or song. They simply landed on the wire, and they watched him.

And I would try and walk far enough away that people would not assume I was with him.

Are we human because we gaze at the stars or do we gaze at the stars because we are human?

When things get tough, this is what you should do: Make good art. I'm serious. Husband runs off with a politician -- make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by a mutated boa constrictor -- make good art. IRS on your trail -- make good art. Cat exploded -- make good art. Someone on the Internet thinks what you're doing is stupid or evil or it's all been done before -- make good art.

Some people have great ideas maybe once or twice in their life, and then they discover electricity or fire or outer space or something. I mean, the kind of brilliant ideas that change the whole world. Some people never have them at all... I get them two or three times a week.

I never fell. I don't care what they say. I'm still doing my job, as I see it.

When you start off, you have to deal with the problems of failure. You need to be thickskinned, to learn that not every project will survive.