Film buffs who don't live in Hollywood have a fantasy about what it's like to be a director. Movies and the people who make movies have such glamour associated with them. But the truth is, it's not like that. It's very different. It's hard work.

I don't remember when exactly I read my first comic book, but I do remember exactly how liberated and subversive I felt as a result.

My fashion is part of who I am, and though I was not born with these clothes on, I was born this way.

All you're trying to do in an improvisation is get as much material as possible for the editing room.

When artists make art, they shouldn't question whether it is permissible to do one thing or another.

To create anything — whether a short story or a magazine profile or a film or a sitcom — is to believe, if only momentarily, you are capable of magic. These essays are about that magic — which is sometimes perilous, sometimes infectious, sometimes fragile, sometimes failed, sometimes infuriating, sometimes triumphant, and sometimes tragic. I went up there. I wrote. I tried to see.