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I was a terrible painter - my portraits looked like the evil chimera love-children of Picasso's demoiselles and the BBC test card clown.

I wanted to be an abstract painter, but I was rotten at it.

I had wanted to be a sculptor throughout life, but to do so, I had to stop painting.

I would have loved to have been a painter or a sculptor. I'm still fascinated by those things.

To make money, I did portraits . The truth is so bizarre! I'm kind of embarrassed. I was like a 19th-century pirate painter. I'd say, 'Your mom would love a painting of you!' A salesman! I'd hawk paintings.

I was always making things. Even though art was what I did every day, it didn't even occur to me that I would be an artist.

I was a child prodigy. Like Michelangelo, who could draw a perfect circle at age five. I was extremely gifted. I could paint a perfect portrait of someone at age five.

I liked drawing and painting, because the only failure would be to listen to the doubters who wanted me to stop drawing and painting because 'you aren't going to make a living doing that.' I liked looking in art books at the work of painters.

I would hardly call myself an artist in that sense; I doodle, I draw, I'm not a trained artist, I couldn't sit down and do an accurate portrait of anyone.

I really wanted to be a cartoonist, and I was in 4th or 5th grade and I would bring my drawings in, and I'd look around, and everyone could draw better than me. Everyone. My drawings were just awful. So that's why I had to write.