You might get some serial killers who are born with a chip missing, but for the most part I don't think anyone is born bad.
It never ceases to amaze me that readers who are willing to suspend their disbelief when it comes to the motivation of a vicious serial killer get high and mighty because I have put a coffee shop where there isn't one. Er... it's a novel. I made one up. I'm allowed to make stuff up. I'd go as far as to suggest that I make stuff up for a living.
We assume people we know can't be serial killers.
What I want to do is tell stories about normal people in the American suburbs. I don't write the book where it's a conspiracy reaching the prime minister; I don't write the book with the big serial killer who lops off heads. My setting is a very placid pool of suburbia, family life. And within that I can make pretty big splashes.
As a serial entrepreneur, angel investor and public company CEO, nothing irks me more than when a startup founder talks about wanting to cash in with an initial public offering.
As a serial investor who has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for startups, I know that the business plans coming out of incubators tend to be vetted and more thoroughly validated. The incubator's input into your business plan will make you look far more polished and experienced - even if you have never run a business before.
Mum's serial misbehavior over the years had driven me, despairing, to write her scolding - occasionally scalding letters.
The 'serial kisser' tag that has been thrust on to me is a lame stereotype. It irritates me. Yes, there is sexual content in my movies, and I have never been apologetic about doing bold scenes. But it's not fair to tag me this way because that can be very stifling.
Serial tasking is hard because switching tasks is hard, even when the tasks are easy and similar. In some experiments, bilingual speakers are asked to read out numbers, first in one language and then midway in another language. They often stumble at the switch, taking many tries before they hit their stride again.
I read the papers, and I watch the news a lot. I watch 'Dateline' and '48 Hours.' And I think we have a tendency to become terrified of one another, thinking that there is a serial killer that is on either side of you.
Nowadays, with much more racial and ethnic mixing, we are seeing serial killers murdering a variety of victims; whoever comes along will most likely do.
There is no acting in a serial. You simply race through the reels.
I had known there had been a serial killer on Mount Tamalpais, and it felt so incongruous in such a beautiful, peaceful spot.
Along a series of lines running from longer to shorter wavelengths the effect of the electric field becomes greater as the serial numbers increase - that is, as the wavelength decreases.
Making the leap from Monsanto's business practices - whatever you may think of them - to the 'dangers' of GM foods is a mistake in logical reasoning. It is akin to saying landscape paintings are potentially evil because the painter was a serial killer.
The serial arsonist is the most difficult to apprehend because the evidence is burned up.
I don't want to be known as a serial entrepreneur. I like doing one thing at a time and making sure that gets my full attention until it's well established. I enjoy the initial years of a company because they are the most dynamic, and that is when I can give the best of myself.
How many chances to you get to make a musical about a serial killer? The minute Tim Burton approached me, I was in.
While there are many wonderful police investigators out there doing some very fine work, the majority of the time it is not brains that catches serial killers.
Serial killers kill for the power and control they experience during the murders and for the added ego boost they get in the aftermath from community fears, media coverage, and the police investigations.
There are two kinds of serial killers as far as the victim is concerned: the kind that you don't see before they pounce on you and the kind you see and don't expect to pounce on you.
I don't like movies about serial killers, necessarily; it's too real and unpleasant for me.
I wrote my first real murder story as a journalist for the Daytona Beach News Journal in 1980. It was about a body found in the woods. Later, the murder was linked to a serial killer who was later caught and executed for his crimes.
Police are reluctant to label a murder as a possible serial homicide.
There are many more serial killers living outside the prison walls than inside.
An autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last installment missing.
I've always been a serial monogamist.
When we write about Auschwitz, we must know that Auschwitz, in a certain sense at least, suspended literature. One can only write a black novel about Auschwitz or - you should excuse the expression - a cheap serial, which begins in Auschwitz and is still not over.
The interesting thing about doing serial television is that the character is growing separate from you, the character and the show are growing, and you get to observe that and participate with it in a way that I think is actually really exciting for an actor.
And I used to buy 'Fangoria,' the horror magazine, which made my mum wonder if I was going to be a serial killer.
Yeah, I had an idea to make a very scary movie, based on a kind of serial murderer that preys on tourists.
I'm a serial monogamist. I'm not one of those people that can date loads of people at the same time, it's all too complicated.
Because I never plan anything out ahead of time, I'm always in the process of learning about my characters. Without a biographical sketch to guide me, I discover things about my heroines as the stories unfold. Only in 'Body Double' did I discover that Maura's mother was a serial killer.
It seems the most common thing for serial interventionists to do these days is to lob the term 'isolationist' at anyone who does not agree with their latest folly, and then set up a straw man about those people not wanting to be involved in the world.
In reality, serial killers are of average intelligence.
I'm a serial monogamist.