A reader e-mailed me to ask why I thought it was ok to put words in Whitney Houston’s mouth about “maturing.” I didn’t. I never speak for the dead. What I do, when I memorialize people who’ve died, is comb through their interviews and either paraphrase or directly quote something they themselves have said. I let them speak for themselves. Sometimes I add a thought or an idea as if it came from them, but I make damn sure it’s little more than a rephrasing of something they once said. Only the context and the setting has been changed, but their words are theirs. Whitney Houston’s assessment of herself in panel two came from a recent interview she gave to Access: