For me, there's a bad year of getting started on something. You write bad stuff and it's awkward to throw it out, and you wait around to get some good ideas that maybe do come or don't come. Until eventually you get the voice and autonomy of the characters, the characters have personality, and they sort of pick up the weight and put it on their shoulders. That's when it becomes a little more fun.

I'm for people clinging. I'm pro-clinging.

I've had no money, absolutely, from my family. They paid for a good education - or schools that purported to be a good education - but, um, not a dime.

Our roots are clinging, we shouldn't knock down so many old 'buildings.'

Sometimes you don't realize how dependent you are on just a few people, and if they disappear, suddenly you can be thrown on your own resources, which may be limited, and you're really in a fix. So I think that's authentic to the experience that it might be very lonely.

It's terrible to write what are essentially comedies for people with no sense of humor. Everyone thinks they have a sense of humor, but observably not.

I originally wanted to be F. Scott Fitzgerald, but failed.