It's always been the same, growing up in Manhattan... the idea of living within a giant archer's target... for use by the bad Russia bowman with the atomic arrows.

Rock and roll kind of screwed up my voice poetically. I found myself having this 'Beat' voice in my poems. It was like this self-fulfilled prophecy because everybody was calling me this rock poet, this Beat poet.

I was this Catholic kid, and I never really lost that. I loved the rituals of Catholicism. The mass is a magic ritual; it's a transubstantiation, and the stations of the cross - I mean, a crown of thorns? Getting whipped? It's punk rock.

I was always the young guy. And when you're successful when you're young, it leads to an arrested adolescence or something, y'know.

Sometimes, comedy feels like the kid brother of drama, trying to get attention by being the class jokester. But it's actually really hard to tell a story while also making people laugh. It's like trying to do two jobs at once.

My idol is Bea Arthur. I really tried to follow her example. She is one of my comedy 'she-roes.'

If I think something's funny, I try to mold it into a joke as soon as possible. Once I have a joke, I say it a million different ways on stage until I find a rhythm and it feels like it's as good as it can be.

The difference between tragedy and comedy: Tragedy is something awful happening to somebody else, while comedy is something awful happening to somebody else.