“As a teen-ager I was constantly trying to please people, which I guess...” — Rosemary Mahoney Quote

As a teen-ager I was constantly trying to please people, which I guess is true of all adolescents.

I was a good student, sort of funny and athletic. I had friends.

I fear that my mind would starve and that I might find myself in danger if I had no visual information, that it's chiefly the light, the shapes, the spaces, the colors that I see that compel me to keep moving forward in life and that keep me safe.

When you hear that China is overcrowded, that's an understatement. I was shocked at the number of people. Even in the rural areas. I was also shocked at the poverty and at the living conditions.

Germany is in terrible condition this year. This is particularly true of the working masses, who are so undernourished that tuberculosis is having a rich harvest, particularly of adolescent children.

I always find it actually funny that the analysis is that the characters I play in comedies are the manchild, the adolescent, characters that refuse to grow up. And yet, if you look back in the history of comedy all the way back to the Marx brothers, that's a big part of comedy.

I first read 'The Lord of the Rings' as an adolescent. It's a dense novel, a sprawling, complex monster of a book populated with a prolific number of characters caught up in a narrative structure that, frankly, does not lend itself to conventional storytelling.

As an adolescent I saw the Specials at the Glass House in Pomona, and that was life changing. I dressed the part - except not well, because it was a thrift suit. I looked more like David Byrne than a rudeboy; I still have a hard time finding suits that fit me. But I had my braces and I had my Docs. It was unbelievable.