As a successful romantic novelist - one of my publishers is Mills & Boon - I create the sort of male heroes that no woman could fail to adore and few real men could hope to emulate.
The role I see for my books is trying to think through the consequences of various things because a lot of the issues around technology and the nuances in it are not usually widely appreciated. That's how I view my writing as I sort of explore this terra incognita ahead of us in an effort to try to understand where we might be heading.
Well, I'm kinda like George Carlin. I think that there ought to be a time where everybody should have all the drugs they want and there'd be nobody in charge, sort of like... now!
I'd go to lesbian parties. I felt like I wasn't hard enough to be butch, but I wasn't wearing heels and a skirt - I wasn't femme - so I felt like I was sort of invisible.
Girls, in particular, use storytelling to establish hierarchies, a pecking order. There is a sort of jockeying of who is in charge of shared history.
For me, the whole idea of performance is not being self-aware, and then sort of just experiencing.
I think a girl always needs a cardigan, and I tend to go for the sparkles. I have a minimum of 50 embellished cardigans. I'm not a believer in less is more; I'm sort of a believer in more is necessary.
I defend CNN! I defend all sorts of people when I think it's wrong.
It's a form of bullying, in my opinion, to make sure that your kid gets the best grades, the best jobs and all that sort of stuff. I just want my child to be happy. I want him to do his best and trust God in the rest, but I'm not going to bully him.
When I'm writing fiction, I'm sort of interested by the fact that somehow or other I can have the feeling of actually seeing things through someone else's eyes.
Perhaps there's a lot of quality television that's not right for the individual who needs questions answered in each episode, and perhaps reality television may be a better option. With the integrity of HBO and their drive to tell stories, it takes time to arrive at any sort of answers.
My belief is in the chaos of the world and that you have to find your peace within the chaos and that you still have to find some sort of mission.
In America, I am brown; I'm 'of colour', so I would be offered Latin roles, and I've fought against that. I don't want to be put in a category, to be just offered the same sort of thing. For me, it's all about different roles, telling the stories of the great writers.
I don't know how I got out of some of the scrapes I was in. But I know that there's some sort of plan.
I took classical piano for a couple of years, but I sort of lost interest - I couldn't read a note today if I tried. I still enjoy that stuff, and I think I naturally gravitate towards the classical licks; in fact, I know that I do. I gravitate towards the classical licks that I heard by famous old composers.
I do a lot of yoga, and when I'm in L.A., I have an outdoorsy sort of lifestyle. It's sort of comfortable, West Coast, yoga chic.
One of life's fundamental truths states, 'Ask and you shall receive.' As kids we get used to asking for things, but somehow we lose this ability in adulthood. We come up with all sorts of excuses and reasons to avoid any possibility of criticism or rejection.
I remember having to quit school and quit my job. I just sort of moved all my stuff into other people's places. Within, like, six months, I was able to earn enough money from touring to rent a place again.
Once I realized the emptiness of life apart from knowing God, when I embraced God and the truth of the gospel and the truth of the Bible, it was a no-brainer decision to see that that was a treasure that was infinitely more valuable than some sort of an atheistic Hollywood party life.
We have the opportunity not just to choose our job or profession, but also to choose the sort of life we want to live and the imprint we will leave on others.
I wear my lines like a soldier wears his medals. They've been earned. They've been fought for - so there's no reason to be ashamed of them. In your 50s, you just care less about that sort of thing. I think it's to do with what's inside you. You can't obsess about the outside.
When I first signed to RCA, I was sort of excited and shocked that it was happening. But over the next couple of years, it really started to feel like that game you play when you're a little kid - the one where you put your nose on a bat and then spin around and try to walk.
Generally speaking, companies get into bankruptcy as a kind of meritocracy. Somebody made some sort of big mistake, to get into bankruptcy, and very often, a part of the mistake is too much leverage.
The writing is the springboard for your intuitive stuff and then you see, maybe a colour of what you want to achieve. Then you bring in the technique you've learnt. But when you're on film, you're not always in control of that. That's what makes me believe in a kind of collective unconscious, a sort of experience you draw on.
Students are very gullible about the web. The only way you can really sort out information on the web is if you've had a prior training in book culture.
People are like, 'Wow you started your own record label,' and treat me like I'm some sort of innovative genius, when I'm not at all. You've got the Internet and music - you put them together, and people hear your music.
I'm sort of like a maniac, and I can't get out of it.
Alone of prejudices, anti-Zionism is sacrosanct. How very dare we distinguish the motivation of one sort from another? Or question, in any instance, an anti-Zionist's good faith? In fact, what determines whether anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic is the nature of it.
Well, you know, too much democracy is a sort of sad thing.
If you're playing with a number of people, there are all sorts of textures, all kinds of possibilities you can get into. So why just play a theme together and then take solos?
I'm an actor, so I think without a character to play, a story to tell, a song to sing... there's some suspicion that there's no 'there' there. Like, if I were to just strip down and present myself, I think I'd sort of just... disappear.
The English may love gardening and fishing, but they have never struck me as being close to nature. Their way of expression is 'the hollyhocks are awfully good' sort of thing, all done in very good taste. The savagery of nature is something they don't dwell upon.
At some of our most competitive universities, 17 times the amount of students that can go to the school, apply. And these applicants are from all over the country, and admissions officers need ways to sort through them. The SAT is just one of those things.
I sort of make believe. That's why I like acting. You can create or imagine anything.
Obviously it makes a difference if an author has a public online profile of some sort, even just down to the level of having a moderately popular blog. Most books sell 5, 10, or 15 thousand copies. Most are midlist books. With those people, even a modest online presence can make a difference in sales.
People do all sorts of things impulsively and follow those impulses into strange places.
