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I grew up in a house of no love or emotion - it kind of sticks with you.

I grew up in the Deep South, where sexism, racism, and homophobia were and still are alive and well. I have early, early memories of words and actions of this type being very painful.

When I was in my teens and twenties, I could see friends expressing how radical they were, and I envied them, the way they lived, the way they dressed. Maybe there is a part of me that is reserved, even in rebellion.

It was only as I wrote about it that I began to find paths of access to feelings that were intolerable to me then.

I grew up in a Southside suburb of Chicago. It was idyllic. But I was plunked into a family that was not artistic and didn't know how to deal with my emotions.

Emotions are products of our mind, and we can actually train ourselves to choose whether we banish or embrace them.

I grew up in a family that despised displays of strong emotion, rage in particular. We stewed. We sulked. When arguments did occur, they were full-scale conniptions, and we regarded them as family failings. Afterward, we withdrew from one another and tried our best to strike the event from our memories.

I grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood and was raised by a man who did not emote, ever... I always cry at movies, and when I was a kid, I would try to hide it. It wasn't something a kid in Oaklyn, N.J., did. So I have these weird hang-ups about emotions.

When I was learning by myself, despite my parents, despite my teachers, despite society, when I was fighting for building my life as a young wire walker at age 16, I didn't have feelings, I had certainties.