I don't think my father considered allowing a teenager to follow his dreams was necessarily good parenting, or even parenting. I think he thought I was a teenager with teenage impulses. I'm pretty sure he knew that if he just let me follow those impulses, it would wind up being very expensive and perhaps even life-endangering.

Communicating with teenage girls is easy unless you're an adult, and then it's like having someone take a pair of pliers and, one-by-one, yank off your fingernails through your ears.

My philosophy on snow skiing is that there are less expensive ways to fall down a mountain. Yet every couple of years, I go on a ski trip for the same reason that women will have multiple children - they simply forget how much it hurts.

I've tried several diets over the past couple of years - not because I need to lose weight, but because my pants are trying to cut me in two.

I began my career creating art for an animated feature film, and it has been a life-long dream to tell some of the story of my own life - the story behind my art - through the medium of motion pictures.

I design all my sets. With my tour and my album artwork, I co-design that with people who are better at drawing than me. But I've got a good imagination. I went to art school so I understand how to communicate my ideas.

China is important to the world in that they are a force and on the move. Exposing them to figurative art opens up a potential for artistic expression far greater than anyone would ever have dreamed possible until today. It is this very spirit of the struggle and determination to triumph that inspires creative expression.

I don't like to get too caught up in habits because too much structure can stifle creativity. But there are a few habits that make us more productive and are healthy to work into every workweek, if not every day. I love to start the day with a workout - even just a run on the treadmill while catching up on the morning headlines.