If you're going to write about the river, you've got to get in.

I feel like I am in a box of bees when I am in a room with lots of people and I'm just looking for the door. I find myself getting more and more agoraphobic as time goes on.

If we got an educational program going, we could tell people, "Instead of butter, use avocado." That's something we eat, it has the good fat, and it has a good texture, and it tastes better. Just imagine if you substituted that. Or if we switched to olive oil, the extra virgin olive oil, we could still have our taquitos, but put a little oil on them and put them in the oven and bake them.

I believe love is always eternal. Even if eternity is only five minutes.

One of the things I used to dream of is that if I could just be funny like Red Skelton, if I could be a comedian like Red Skelton - that's what I watched on TV - then maybe I would have friends. I just remember that if I told stories to my friends, they listened. And in my family, with nine people talking at the same time, it's really hard to get people to listen to you. We were all craving attention.

You don't have to be the specialist on everything. You can try to inform yourself.

It's difficult for me to have a large story, a very large story - a novel is a large story. I'm used to writing and doing these little miniature paintings.