We're shaking loose viruses and dislodging them from their natural ecological limitations, places where they aren't very abundant and have competition, even within a single animal. We introduce them into a new, rich habitat called the human population, where they can flourish more abundantly and cause more trouble.

Most Americans know nothing about the African forest, and it seems to them a very scary, spooky dangerous place. I've spent a lot of time in the forests of central Africa. I know they're beautiful places that contain a lot of different kinds of creatures, including some that carry Ebola.

I thought 'The Hot Zone' was fascinating, mesmerizing. It's one of the things that got me interested in Ebola.

I was a prodigy who learned how difficult writing was only after getting published. I paid my dues later.

Saying gay people shouldn't be the punchline is basically saying don't make people the punch line, which I think is ridiculous. The whole point of comedy is, on some level, to make fun of ourselves and put everything into an absurdist context.

In studio films, everything has to be boxed in, everybody needs to know beforehand - this is comedy, this is sci-fi, this is drama - and what's the point of independent film if you don't get to experiment?

I'm not interested in being the damsel in distress; I want someone who has her own storyline and her own mission - not a woman who, to use a comedy term, is just there to provide the feed line to someone else's joke.

Stand-up comedy is an art form and it dies unless you expand it.