“I was a loner as a child. I had an imaginary friend - I didn't bother with him.”

“As a child, I was an imaginary playmate.”

“My mother said I was a weird child. I had about 15 imaginary friends and talked to myself, a lot. I still do sometimes - I love the power of pretend. Now I channel all those voices into my characters. It's probably a saner outlet.”

“I'm a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn't have the heart to let him down.”

“When I didn't have friends, I had books.”

“I was the green monkey, the pariah. And I had no friends. Not just a few friends, or one good friend, or grudging acceptance by other misfits and outcasts. I was alone. All stinking alone, without even an imaginary playmate.”

“Oddly enough, I was in Paris, the last show of a Soundgarden tour. I didn't know him that well, but I had friends who were trying to talk to him and it wasn't working out. I had this idea that when I got home, I'd try and sit down with him.”

“In those days I could hate Adam Scott very easily. I was, I suppose, very jealous of him having a relationship with and the attention of my mother. I sometimes felt that we, the Nilsen kids, were an impediment to her fulfillment in her new life and family. I was a very lonely and turbulent child. I inhabited my own secret world full of ideal and imaginary friends. Nature had mismatched me from the flock.”

“… The pain didn't bother me. In fact, I welcome it: It meant I was alive.”

“I'm wild again, beguiled again
A simpering, whimpering child again;
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered - am I.

Couldn't sleep and wouldn't sleep
When love came and told me, I shouldn't sleep;
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered - am I.
I'm wild again! Beguiled again!
A simpering, whimpering child again,
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I.”