It is only when you watch the dense mass of thousands of ants crowded together around the Hill blackening the ground that you begin to see the whole beast and now you observe it thinking planning calculating. It is an intelligence a kind of live computer with crawling bits for its wits.

The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.

I will always desire to play with Bruce Springsteen. He's the most inspirational most dedicated most committed and most focused artist I've ever seen. I like to be around people like that.

Rap music's been around for too long now to be inspirational. The words are but the music isn't.

I grew up in the '80s where there's a lot of these kind of post-apocalyptic post-comet post-whatever it was so that always captured my imagination a lot as a little kid that idea of getting access to secret places and being able to roam around where you're not supposed to.

Fairy tales opened up a door into my imagination - they don't conform to the reality that's around you as a child. I started reading when I was three and read everything but I wanted to be an actress.

I do a lot of curiosity buying I buy it if I like the album cover I buy it if I like the name of the band anything that sparks my imagination. I still like to go to record stores I like to just wander around and I'll buy whatever catches my attention.

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.

Back in 2004 Kellie Overbey handed me her play 'Girl Talk' to read. I fell in love with her brutally delicious humor and the fearlessly deft way in which she drew her characters. They jumped off the page and begged me to give them a space in which to stomp around.