I do realise and understand very well on a profound level how lucky I am and what a privileged position it is and what it's done ultimately for me, my family and my kids. But at the same time, there are moments in a man's life when you just kind of want to feel somewhat normal.
So when I look at spending more dollars, I look at the fact, do I really want my kids and your kids and everybody else's kids in this country to have to pay that bill?
You have an entire generation of kids who grew up with the idea that music is something that you can download for free.
I made the conscious decision to not have kids, and I didn't want to be married.
Unfortunately, many parents reject helmets for their kids out of a mistaken perception that helmets are unsafe for children.
I don't know if women are meant to run, especially after having kids.
I don't like to read things that people write about me. I'd rather read what kids have to say about me because it's not their profession to do that.
I'm interested in what it means to live in America. I'm interested in the kind of country that we live in and leave our kids. I'm interested in trying to define what that country is. I got the chutzpa or whatever you want to say to believe that if I write a really good about it, it's going to make a difference.
My parents were farmers' kids from South Dakota. My dad was an engineer. I wanted to be responsible and major in something pragmatic.
I think I'm drawn to people who dream big, and both films have that. In 'Street Fight, Cory Booker wants to become Mayor of Newark, and in 'Racing Dreams,' three kids want to become NASCAR drivers.
Supposedly, summer vacation happens because that's when the kids are home from school, although having the kids home from school is no vacation. And supposedly the kids are home from school because of some vestigial throwback to our agricultural past.
People don't want to serve apprenticeships any more. Kids expect to be paid and treated really well and all that guff before they've achieved anything. It doesn't work like that. You have to spend five or six years being relatively rubbish and put up with it. For that you don't deserve to be getting lottery money.
It's easier for me to write certain character types because of my own life experiences, but I find it too artistically limiting to only write about red-headed kids who grew up in small town Montana. That's really part of the fun of fantasy, I think. Our imagination is basically unlimited. Okay, that's a terrifying thing about fantasy, too.
I like Disney stuff. No-one looks at 'Toy Story' and says,' Oh, that's just for kids.' Why is it that games can only appeal to a certain audience, but movies and books - I mean, how many adults read 'Harry Potter?'
Because I didn't have brothers, I was always interested in the kids down the street that had four brothers in their family, so I became one of them - but it was not my family.
I think about things like, 'Will my kids need a college account? Will they even go to college?' I don't know if that will be the case.
I've conducted an experiment on my kids. Instead of denying them access to media, I've encouraged it. They read comic books, play Nintendo and watch way too much TV.
That little Miley Cyrus... she's like a little Elvis. The kids love her because she's Hannah Montana, but what people don't realize about her is she is such a fantastic singer and songwriter. She writes songs like she's 40 years old!
When we made 'Night of the Living Dead,' we got riddled. There was this famous article Roger Ebert wrote just blasting the film because he had gone to see it at some screening where there were all these kids in the audience. I don't know why that happened. We didn't make the movie for kids.
Like most kids, I grew up singing 'This Land Is Your Land' in grammar school, but with the most radical verses neatly removed. This was before I knew it was a Woody Guthrie song.
When I left my Catholic school, I was around 10 or 11 years old, and it started to unravel for me there. Kids pick up on things if you're interested and inquisitive. I was seeing things that were not in line with what I'd been taught about Jesus. It didn't jive with me.
It's natural to want your kids to have all the things you didn't have.
In terms of role modelling for younger kids, I never really censor myself.
I actually grew up with people from all over the world. There wasn't enough of a difference to feel different from anybody else. Their grandmother hollered at me like my grandmother hollered at all the kids when anybody did anything wrong. And their parents did the same thing.
I'd definitely like more kids when I'm older. And I think I'm like every woman in that I'd like to get married one day.
Asian people are very practical and come from a conservative world. The parents want their kids to be doctors and lawyers. There are casting calls for Asian children, but once the parents find out the children might miss school, they're opposed to it.
One advantage to having a kid on the spectrum: they tend to be rule followers. Socially, things are harder for them than most kids.
I, for one, love kids in my romance novels. When done right, kids add so much conflict. Not just of the 'interruption on the way to the bedroom' variety. But conflict about commitment and insecurity.
I take the kids to church and Sunday school. They love it. I really think it's important for a child to feel that there are things that are bigger than your life out there.
My heart grows every day through struggling and love of my kids. It helps balance everything else - the work and the world. It helps keep me grounded and in perspective of what is really meaningful to me.
Kids would tell me I was fat and say other mean things about my body.
Living with very limited expectations is a much more immediate way of living. You really do just make the best of everything you have. I guess kids have that ability; they wait in joyful anticipation of something rather than that sense of entitlement.
Whenever I am shooting in Chennai, I spend most of my time with my wife and kids. Sometimes, I take my kids to the shooting spot, and they just love it.
I think that when moms just give themselves up, the kids know. They feel guilty; they resent their mother for making them feel guilty, and then they grow up and do the same thing. Whereas my mother showed me that it's okay to focus on yourself.
Writing for children isn't easy. Kids will abandon a story that doesn't interest, enchant, delight, thrill, or terrify them. But when you can find a way into a young reader's imagination through something as simple as words on paper, well, there's nothing more satisfying.
I think that if my kids are completely convinced of God's unfailing love for them, whether they fail or not, they'll have confidence to persevere in life.
