I used to do stop motion in my own garage and Claymation and all that stuff. That led to doing backgrounds and matte paintings. I started doing matte paintings professionally back before the computer, sort of painting on glass.

I know, being a father myself, what my interpretation of true love is, or the essence of love, and you can apply it to other things besides human beings.

Is making a movie true love if you're a creative person? It could be. But in my world, the importance of being a father and having kids and knowing that connection is true love. Making a movie is love.

My dad was a low budget film director. I grew up as a kid making movies, based on the love of seeing what my dad was doing.

Rock music has always embraced - and even represented - rebellion, rowdiness, and a robust disdain for social decorum. But along with more classical art forms like theater, opera, and the symphony, it's suffering from the distracted, smartphone-carrying audiences of the digital age.

My wife used to work as a teacher and support me, and now I can do something for her, which is very satisfying for me.

Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.

I've found that in fiction - and this is just the kind of writer I am - I can't really work from an outline. I have a vague idea of the characters at the beginning of the book, and then I have a vague idea of whatever the end of the book will be, but I can't approach creative nonfiction like that.