I always know exactly where my stories take place which gives me something certain so I can use my imagination for the other stuff. I worry though who wants to keep reading stories about Kalamazoo?

I've studied a technique called the Sanford Miesner technique that teaches you how to focus. It's mainly about daydreaming. And the technique's really about imaginary circumstances. Using your imagination to sort of daydream about stuff. It makes you emotional in a scene.

I have been afraid all my life that I am going to die. All my life it has been stuffed in my imagination.

I want to be taken seriously as the type of musician that plays stuff like an electric rake. I mean how seriously do you take someone like Spike Jones? They take him pretty seriously - a really good musician who made a great contribution in terms of humor which is part of what I try to do too.

Every time I've done comedy in like traditional comedy clubs there's always these comedians that do really well with audiences but that the other comedians hate because they're just you know doing kind of cheap stuff like dancing around or doing like very kind of base sex humor a lot and stuff like that.

I'm going to do a lot of weird stuff that's not going to be like me prancing around like an insane 12-year-old. I showed everybody that side of me and I think it's time to do different stuff even when it comes down to the type of humor. I want to do some drier weirder stuff.

Negative humor is forgotten immediately. It's the stuff that makes us feel better about our lives that lives long. Much more satisfying. Enter children's books.

I suppose I look for humor in most situations because it humanizes things it makes a character much more three-dimensional if there's some kind of humor. Not necessarily laugh-out-loud type of stuff just a sense that there is a humorous edge to things. I do like that.

I really hate sitcoms on television with canned laughter and stuff. What really makes me laugh is the real-life stuff. I've got a dry sense of humor.

Since the goal of my programs is to show audiences how humor can both help them heal as well as deal with not-so-funny stuff I decided to discuss the events of the previous week the pain all of us were feeling and how humor and some laughter might be beneficial.

When I look at a lot of older stuff that I've written I think one sign of amateur humor writing is when you see people trying too hard.

The humor section is the last place an author wants to be. They put your stuff next to collections of Cathy cartoons.

I remember when humor was gentle pokes. I used to call it 'arm around the shoulder' humor. Now they go for the jugular and they take no prisoners. It's mean mean stuff.

I hope I'm in a position to make stuff that I really want to make as opposed to stuff that I just have to make for money reasons or to sustain a certain marquee value.

This AIDS stuff is pretty scary. I hope I don't get it.

I wish I could know everything ever like that would be my wish - that's what I hope heaven is that they tell you who shot JFK and all that stuff.

I hate formal stuff. I love looking like a doll and all that stuff and playing dress up but when I'm home sweat pants t-shirt. When I'm in the studio sweat pants t-shirt.

I exercise about 40 minutes a day and I'll run one day and do circuit training the next day. I live in an area where there are brilliant hills and mountains so I get a good hill run with my dog. At home I'll do the circuit training with old weights along with pull-ups in the trees and that sort of stuff.

I have a little kitchen office at home where I do all my kids' stuff.

Every woman I've had a relationship with has found this maddening the fact that I will talk about anything on the stage and reveal all this stuff and yet when I'm at home I clam up and won't discuss anything intimate or personal.

Acting is probably the greatest therapy in the world. You can get a lot stuff out of you on the set so you don't have to take it home with you at night. It's the stuff between the lines the empty space between those lines which is interesting.

I tentatively believe in a god. I was brought up in a fairly religious home. I think the world is compatible with reincarnation karma all that stuff.

With fiction you can talk about plot character and narrative whereas a poem brings home the fact that everything that happens in a work of literature happens in terms of language. And this is daunting stuff to deal with.

The aesthetic came along the way I think - just through experimenting and going on tour and trying stuff out on stage having fun with it and not taking it too seriously. If I had a ballgown at home I'd wear it onstage. If I found something in a charity shop I'd wear it. That's where it grew from - just wanting to play dress-up.