“I knew that once I went looking, I’d need a man like Dad—dependable and respectful toward women, and not into porn or weird rich old guys who bought teenage kids’ underwear.”

“I needed to talk to my dad. My dad who had been to war, who had seen its horrors, who suffered from its nightmares, my dad who was a good man, the best man I’d ever known, who, along with my uncle, I wanted to honor by teaching military kids—my dad, the only one who I would believe if he would just tell me I could be good, too, that I could do right by my students, because for sure they were going to suffer. It’s just cause and effect. We’re at war. The military fights wars. I teach military kids. I’d never served, but now I could make a difference. I just needed my dad to tell me what to do, to tell me I was good enough to get it done.”

“Live your life like you're 80 looking back on your teenager years. You know if your dad calls you at eight in the morning and asks if you want to go out for breakfast. As a teenager you're like no, I want to sleep. But as an eighty year old looking back you have that breakfast with your dad. It just little things like that, that helped me when I was a teenager in terms of making choices you won't regret.”

“An artist is somebody who enters into competition with God. The guy who built the Tower of Babel was the first artist. If I had to check out where I was in other centuries, I was his old lady. If I wasn't the guy, I was his chick. He knew that there was more and God got jealous. Even gods get uptight. Women make gods uptight. Everyone thinks of God as a man -- you can't help it -- Santa Claus was a man, therefore God has to be a man. But a man comes once. A woman never stops coming.”

“When I went to college, I lived on campus, and the guys I hung out with made the characters in Revenge of the Nerds look like the Rat Pack in 1962. I, myself made that kid Booger look like Remington Steele.”

“I'd get this, I luuuuuuuv you, buddy! stuff, and I'd just look at him like, Who are you talking to, guy? What does that mean, your dad 'loves' you and hasn't a [bleep]ing clue who you are? What's he love then? Some kid in Happy Days. Not me.”