I think for me it’s maybe about inhabiting the character’s body. Once I can feel her skin and push her hair behind her ears, feel her shoes on her feet, I can start.
No one wants to admit that they’re a successful writer, filmmaker, painter, or musician in large part because they had a financially stable background. Talent and hard work certainly have something to do with where you end up, but zip code is still destiny.
Pauline was really not a film critic; she was a writer whose subject was the movies. She gave all of herself to it—her knowledge, experience, and talent.
I used to play the story for laughs. But when I started a family of my own and as my children grew, I realized I had to reexamine the way I was brought up.
I hope this book helps people coming into themselves feel less alone—and less crazed by the way America lies to young people about what they experience.
Sometimes it was almost deliciously scary [to] be fighting against these odds. The reward of having a creative enterprise be accepted is kind of amazing.
I don’t believe we should be grateful for adversity. But we can be grateful to ourselves for the strength we find to make it out of the underworld alive.
This trauma told me stories of who I was in relation to home and the men who raised me. These memories were so horribly fucking bright I couldn’t turn away.
I feel like my wife’s afraid she’s going to come through the door and I’ll be koshering the kitchen or I’ll turn Hasidic while she’s out picking up our kid.