We're drawn to making our mark, leaving a record to show we were here, and a journal is a great place to do it. Once you start drawing, writing, and gluing stuff in every day, it can quickly become a habit - addictive, even. Your attitude should be: 'I can do this, but I mustn't make it too intimidating.'

What I'm doing is trying to get kids to pay attention, to look at the physical world more, and to question everything. I am trying to get kids out of the house and away from screens.

A lot of people don't like to spend money on a journal because they're afraid to wreck it, which is understandable. I buy beautifully made leather-bound journals because I have lost my fear of the blank page.

I love the idea of a website/blog being a catalyst for propelling people out into the world, and I enjoy it most when people write me to say that their world looked or smelled or felt a little different because of something that I wrote.

They fail to recognize the broad biological principle that organic material is constantly being recycled. Everything has a time of being - a birth, a life span, and a death.

My first job was with an auto plant, Kansas City - they treated you like slaves. From there I went back to Chicago, worked in steel mills, drove a cab, stuff like that.

I don't think violence on film breeds violence in life. Violence in life breeds violence in films.

You think in a different way when you don't have any money. The joy of poverty is that you use your imagination to come up with stuff.