L.A.'s magic has let me see every level of the dream.

Everything we are is anchored in our childhoods. The drama comes in how we deal with it. Are we slaves to our past, or can we rise above it? This is the stuff of great stories.

People want you to be ordinary. They don't like it when people are different. They don't like it when a man soars over their heads while they stand in the dirt. People hate you when you're special; it reminds them of everything that they aren't.

I write characters and stories that move me, and I write from the heart.

My family was all police and hard hats at the refineries; they didn't know what to think about me. So I became a closet writer.

It's easy to sound good. All you do is leave in the parts where you act tough and forget the parts where you get shoved around.

Sometimes I am so dry that people don't know I'm kidding and think I'm being serious. I enjoy this because their reactions are often funny.