Bricks are crumbling in places, and the front door is so swollen you have to push hard to get in

As an artist, I have to be the ambassador of everything.

For me, a story's a story if people want to hear it; it's very much based on oral storytelling. And for me, a story is a story when people give me the privilege of listening when I'm speaking it out loud.

My trainer taught me, because he's Iranian, and that's a beautiful snack [pistachios]. I have some with me, actually, in my bag. You could eat that on a plane instead of the salted nuts. And a serving size a day is the size of your hand, not the size of your head!

You know how they say, "Find your voice"? That's your voice, in your pajamas. And it doesn't mean that you're going to publish it or print it or people are going to see you in your pajamas. It just means you are going to construct the foundation in your pajamas, in that voice.

My friend, Dennis Mathis, was reading Eastern European and Japanese experimental writers, and I brought the Latin American writers to his attention, so we exchanged books and bounced off one another.

I feel comfortable in Spanish, I chat like a parrot, but I don't have the confidence in Spanish that I do in English.