Get smart and nothing can touch you.

I never base a character on someone I know. You can get ideas from real life, but every character you write is some aspect of yourself.

All my life I wanted somebody who knew more than I did to tell me the truth.

I made up my mind that I'd get out of that place and I didI learned that if you want to get somewhere, you just make up your mind and work like hell til you get there. If you want to go somewhere in life, you just have to work till you make it.

I didn't think much about that statement then. But later I would-I still do. I think about it and think about it until I think I'm going crazy.

California is like a beautiful wild kid on heroin, high as a kite and thinking she's on top of the world, not knowing she's dying, not believing it even if you show her the marks.

My mother was physically and emotionally abusive. My father was an extremely cold man.