Childhood memories are sometimes covered and obscured beneath the things that come later, like childhood toys forgotten at the bottom of a crammed adult closet, but they are never lost for good.

Most of us only find our own voices after we've sounded like a lot of other people.

I think I've got Fear down, but how do I take it all the way up to Terror?

I don't think immediate tragedy is a very good source of art. It can be, but too often it's raw and painful and un-dealt-with. Sometimes art can be a really good escape from the intolerable, and a good place to go when things are bad, but that doesn't mean you have to write directly about the bad thing; sometimes you need to let time pass, and allow the thing that hurts to get covered with layers, and then you take it out, like a pearl, and you make art out of it.

I thought I was your destination. Looks like I was just another stop on the line.

There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts.

Nobody's American," said Wednesday. "Not originally. That's my point.