It never occurred to me that 'Phantom of the Opera' was the sort of subject that I'd want to do, because I just thought it was something that would be a bit jokey. 'Til I read the book.
I'm just trying to avoid any sort of generic kind of music - I don't want to do generic jazz or fusion.
Mainly as sort of blueprints for dealing with most of the adults in their lives, to some extent with their fellows. It is this notion of aiming high and there's always hope, aim low and you might as well stop now.
By visualizing information, we turn it into a landscape that you can explore with your eyes: a sort of information map. And when you're lost in information, an information map is kind of useful.
I get to actually experience what it would be like to be a psycho, which is not a fun one, or to be a cowboy, or to be a weird character of some sort. For me, it suits me. It suits my personality. I'm an emotional kind of person anyway.
There is no decision that we can make that doesn't come with some sort of balance or sacrifice.
I'm an optimist, so I believe in some sort of life after death; I don't know what kind.
I don't sort of sit in a chair and pompously feel proud of myself about all the things we might have accomplished.
I feel like a total hippie right now. I'm passionate about all sorts of things - a lot of boring, cuddly Hallmark things, to be honest.
I sort of feel like music saved my life when I was young. This is the one thing that I knew I was good at.
I have a friend - not a dwarf - who's an alchemist of sorts. He concocted a men's cologne... He gave me a bottle as a gift. I was thinking we should totally put this on the market. You know how Jessica Simpson and Beyonce have signature perfumes and make a mint? I'm thinking this cologne could be my ticket to fortune.
So many people condemn me for risk taking, but I find it sort of hypocritical because everybody takes risks. Even the absence of activity could be viewed as a risk. If you sit on the sofa for your entire life, you're running a higher risk of getting heart disease and cancer.
There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves.
Most American writers don't get asked their opinion on current affairs, whereas in Europe and England, we still do. There are writers here who are the most sophisticated commentators, but they're not asked. Like Don DeLillo, who sort of forecast most of the modern world before it happened.
I grew up in a household where we talked about race all the time, and that's sort of in me. So if I become the Anthony Bourdain of race and culture, then great!
Other projects later this year, but I think it's going to be a very very busy year this year with Star Wars and the re-release, so I'm sort of running about going backwards and forwards to America, Japan, Mexico. So there will be a lot of things to do.
I like being in warm weather. I find that relaxes me. I like being near water. I like sitting on a beach and sort of hearing the water, watching waves break, looking at the shimmering. I find that really relaxing.
I've been on the show for six years and I don't even know what her history is. I sort of make things up in my mind, but I think it's hard for an audience to follow and invest in a character when they don't have the details.
I always loved horror, but I read all sorts of books. My favourite as a child was 'The Secret Garden' which has a big influence on Lord Loss, believe it or not!
I've always liked pop music. There was a bit of a misunderstanding with the avant-garde rock scene, because I think I was sort of swimming the wrong way, really.
I wouldn't change a thing in my own life, but I'd like to go back in time anyway though, just to some sort of eras that I wish I'd lived in - like the '60s. I'd love to have been in London in the '60s, partying away.
I often think of the novel as a form that celebrates social groups, and the short story being a form that is capable of celebrating an individual or a sort of insular little pair of people.
I like to take people you wouldn't really think people would write novels about: an aqueduct engineer, a code-breaker, a hedge-fund manager. It's in those sorts of lives that I find more fascination than in a CIA operative or a Marine or something like that.
I try to start every day with some sort of vegetable and fruit juice before I eat any kind of solid food. Because that really jump starts your body and digestive system with the high content of micronutrients that your body needs.
I think my friend Tom Hanks knows me. He understands me very well. He's always had a sort of parental feeling toward me. He knows I'm a big mush ball, which is just part of my personality.
I think you just assume that your memory is just sort of a video playback of your experience, but it's nothing like that at all. It's a complete refabrication of an event and a lot of it is made up, because you're filling in spaces.
Y'know, the real reason why I was such a failure in the sense of being unable to make any sort of a living was because I was really not motivated. I had no motivation.
If you come out of the gate with a finger pointed, then you really aren't opening the door to any sort of resolution to whatever the problem may be. Whether it's about race or sexual orientation or religion, if you can't empathize with the opposing party, then you can't really meet in the middle.
It is scary to write - period - for me, but once you get past the idea that it's scary to write, I still can only be who I am. As a writer, my job, to me, is to expose myself - to really sort of dig in and find out who I am and then put it on the page.
And I think people who sort of glibly say, 'Well, you know, they're not going to handle security, UAE is a great ally,' four and a half years ago, they were not an ally, they were working with the enemy, and if those same people are still there today that were there then, these are real serious issues.
I saw Deep Purple live once and I paid money for it and I thought, 'Geez, this is ridiculous.' You just see through all that sort of stuff. I never liked those Deep Purples or those sort of things. I always hated it. I always thought it was a poor man's Led Zeppelin.
For passion, be it observed, brings insight with it; it can give a sort of intelligence to simpletons, fools, and idiots, especially during youth.
I came up during the 'Star Wars' generation and that was sort of the thing I plugged into much more. It was a little before my time and I think it was sort of grappling with these intellectual ideas that were a little advanced for my young mind. At the time. But now I have a much deeper appreciation for it.
Life is a kind of struggle. Life is a sort of fight.
I'm fascinated by the journey that an intelligent and an ambitious woman makes in the professional world in contrast to the journey that a man of similar ambition, of similar intelligence makes. What sort of concessions does a woman have to make? Does she have to work 20 percent harder than a man?
I think it's the pain and suffering that drive you to become an artist. The art itself should be the pain, sort of exorcising every demon and making you feel like you're a person that matters.
