I don't think it's the writer's job to give answers or to give opinions. In fact, when a writer has answers, I think the work ends up being corrupted. It becomes didactic. What a book does is share a consciousness and invite people to explore the questions as best as you can.
When I hear the word 'documentary,' I don't think certain things should be left out. You've got to keep it 100 percent as much as you can, unless your group has a meeting beforehand and says, 'Yo - don't say this, 'cause boom, boom, boom.' Other than that, it's a documentary so let's document, you know what I mean?
As a youngster, I think I said I wanted to be a journalist, but that's a disguise for being a writer.
I never went to a university, and I am proud to say so because I don't think I have done too badly.
If I was writing about an academic or a more difficult person, I would use the Latinate vocabulary more, but I do think Anglo-saxon is the language of emotion.
Sometimes I think we're exposed to things we shouldn't be exposed to too early. I think that sets the tone to a person's whole life. Trauma.
I became famous, I think, really because of the interpretation of other people's songs, way back when, and that's what I enjoy the most. And I'm a lazy bugger.
I don't care if people think I am an overactor, as long as they enjoy what I do. People who think that would call Van Gogh an overpainter.
My mother raised us to think that if we worked hard, and if we put our end of the bargain in, it would work out OK for us.
People seem to think of me as a goody-goody who never curses, but I can be very nasty if I'm pushed. Cross me too many times, and I'll never talk to you again.
I honestly think that in five years time, television will be watched on computer screens anyway and you'll be doing multiple things. You'll be 'IMing' while you're watching a show and checking the news.
I don't really think of myself as a heartthrob.
The danger that we have right now are people who get the same information as I do and, therefore, think they'll reach the same conclusions that haven't traded as long, don't have bear claws up and down their backs like I do.
I write about characters that interest me. And I don't think of my books as being forms of entertainment.
Obviously, the Sixties was a time when everyone wanted to experiment, and then everything became very formulated and corporate, so artists tended to get pushed into a kind of pattern. Now, I think that has continued with the emergence of televised talent shows like 'X Factor.'
I think it's very healthy to use journalistic and legal techniques to investigate the evidence for and against Christianity and other faith systems.
I think all these pop cultural media often reflect conversations we're having in the real world at that moment in time. I think one of the big conversations we're having as a culture is we thought we'd solved sexism and racism, and we're realizing more and more that we haven't.
I just pinch myself, because I think if there's anything I can be proud of, I've survived success, which I think is difficult these days.
I know with me, you really have to, like, pound me over the head to say, 'I like you. I really like you' to get me to see it. I think if you're too passive, you just fall into that friend role. And that's hard to break out of.
Some of my academic friends think I've fallen from a very special grace.
I think there are opportunities for women in comedies - how zany is up to them.
I watch vlogs on YouTube. I watch Jenna Marbles a lot - I think she's really funny - and a lady called Daily Grace.
It's more fun to have a name rather than a number. I think this gives our products a personality. I get the names from literature, movies, opera, traveling, nature, poetry, sometimes even the street. I keep a small book that I write in. I wake up in the middle of the night and jot down a name for a lipstick or an eyeshadow.
I think of setting as almost a character of its own, influencing the other characters in ways they're not even aware of. So much of the success of a good ghost story rides on creating a creepy atmosphere; details of the landscape itself can help create a sense of dread.
They would go back and listen to my matches, and two days later, I'd be fined. Because no one heard it while it was being played, but they heard it on some mic behind the court. Is that the way it should be? I don't think so.
I love 'Love Actually' and particularly the story with Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson. I think it's possibly the best exploration of infidelity that's ever been done because it really feels accurate and real.
I think I was able to survive five heart attacks because I never postponed going to the hospital when something didn't feel right.
When I was doing stand-up, I was about twenty, and I really think that that's a little too young. I didn't have a whole lot of life experience to draw on.
I think that the larger and more complex the business gets, I have to listen twice as much as I speak.
I think I love Montreal more than Montreal loves me... I love the food there.
Just like food, you could think peanut butter is your favorite food for 5,000 years and then be like, 'I actually like burgers better', you know? I was just trying to say that kids and people in general don't have to label themselves and say, 'I'm straight' or 'I'm gay' or 'I'm whatever.'
While I love to read contemporary fiction, I'm not drawn to writing it. Perhaps it's because the former journalist in me is too inhibited by the press of reality; when I think about writing of my own time I always think about nonfiction narratives. Or perhaps it's just that I find the present too confounding.
I have been learning English on the road since I started when I was 15, so it is a slow process but making some progress. Now I think I am much more comfortable with my English. However, it is difficult, still, when I speak about something that is not tennis.
The great thing about having money is that you can actually just get on with your life and not have to think about paying the bills or crouch over 'The Wall Street Journal' or the 'Financial Times' and look at the stock figures and things like that. That bores me rigid.
I think it was when I was 12 when I entered a singing competition. I sang my own original song for an audience of 1,000 people.
I don't want to be in the Hall of Fame. I don't think owners should be.
