Grime is not like messiness or some fingerprints on a cabinet; it takes a long time to accumulate.

I used to love to draw things that made me laugh or made friends laugh. When I was 13 or 14, I started thinking, This is what I like to do more than anything else.

I just really love the cartoon form. I love the plasticity of it.

It's almost selfishness, taking care of your mental health. You can't just not do it.

You would open a drawer, which my father had jammed full of newspapers, and the bottom would drop out. There were buttons and screws and nails and bottle caps and jar lids – the drawer of jar lids! Why? Because they're made of metal and maybe there'll be another war and we'll need the metal. A friend of mine – I quote him in the book – says, 'You have found the source of the river eBay.'

You could pray all you want that you have a massive stroke while you're working and die, but possibly that won't happen, and you'll be in this bed, and somebody's going to have to clean you up.

My parents were extremely reluctant. When my father was clearly dying, my mother refused to acknowledge it.