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I mean, there's a sense wherein you skip a part of childhood, too, when you start working at that age I did; I was out working and out of home at 15, paying my own way in the world.

I got a good-enough adolescence. I mean, there's a sense wherein you skip a part of childhood, too, when you start working at that age I did; I was out working and out of home at 15, paying my own way in the world.

I always had an easier time with adults. Somehow, I was always old! I still feel old.

I ended up dropping out of high school at 16 and getting kicked out of my home. My parents told me, sadly, that because I was so disruptive to the rest of the household, that I could no longer live under their roof.

I've watched my peers get better with age and hoped that would happen with me.

I was having my teens in my 30s.

I know kids are supposed to go through these awkward stages, but I just never even thought about that. I was too busy worrying about getting my education while I was working.

By the time I left the bar, I was 30. I was a dishwasher. They call it a bar-back, but essentially, I washed dishes for a living. I had no high-school diploma, I had no agent, and my literary successes were non-existent... but it was the only thing I ever wanted to do, so I did feel trapped.

I basically took six or seven years off, but then I had another five or four of me not working at all because I was in school. It was really 13 years of me not working at all... I really couldn't even think about it.