I really feel concerned about young people within our present culture. Our present culture, we have to change. Change is inevitable and I wasn't raised in our present culture but it has great pressure that as a young person I never had. Material pressure, social pressure, visual pressure, how you look, and I just try to appeal to young people to think for themselves, to be their own person, and to ask questions and also be very attentive to our planet and our environment.

I feel about politics the same way I do about religion: I find the best I can from different things.

Look at Obama - he is now [2015] trying to help us environmentally but he should have done it eight years ago. He's trying to salvage his legacy and trying to do something good but we needed for him to show leadership from day one.

Why can't I write something that would awake the dead? That pursuit is what burns most deeply.

My father was a dreamy fellow - he read Plato and Socrates and watched Phillies games.

I'm from South Jersey: The idea of eating a roll with olive oil and anchovies or some kind of sardine and drinking mint tea definitely comes from reading Paul Bowles.

Desire is hunger is the fire I breathe, love is a banquet on which we feed.