I needed the 'Chuck' phase to appreciate the 'Captain Awesome' phase because otherwise I don't think I would have realized the flip side of that coin. I think I needed to see the world through Chuck's eyes before becoming Captain Awesome.
If there was a way to bring someone back, would you do it, no matter what the consequences might be? I know that for me, my logical mind says, 'Of course not!' But the truth is, when you lose someone who is so close to you, it's as if they are a part of you; there's always one more thing to say, one more moment you wish you'd had.
I would like to help people have honest and constructive conversations about energy. We need to understand how much energy our modern lifestyles use, decide how much energy we would like to use in the future, and choose where we will get that energy from.
Tragedy takes us to the very state of consciousness which, were we to hold to it, would go far toward preventing further tragedies.
I used to be very much Jekyll-and-Hyde, where the Jekyll in me would say, 'Keep to the budget, be responsible,' and Hyde would be like ,'Ah, we can do an extra shot or an extra day.'
With humor, it's so subjective that trying to think of what the ideal reader would think would drive you crazy.
Literature is a beautiful way of keeping the imagination alive, of visiting worlds you would never have time to in your day-to-day life. It keeps you abreast of a wider spectrum of human activities.
The Olympics was always my be-all and end-all, so when I won, it was the best feeling in the world. But I didn't realise how much it would affect me mentally. All that pressure. I was only 19; I still didn't know everything about taekwondo, I wasn't experienced. I just did amazing on that day and won.
Back in the day, I used to watch 'The Cajun Chef' with Justin Wilson. His mixing would go one way, and his stomach would go the other.
I've always freelanced as an actor, and you always have to worry about the next paycheck. When I booked 'True Blood,' I promised myself I would take advantage of the fact that for the first time in my career, I could afford to turn down big money to go and do small, character-driven indies.
I like to write, and I would love to be a screenwriter one day and a director.
Today, I'm 60, I'm not married, I don't have any kids. I would give up some Social Security to save a system that Americans are going to depend on now and in the future.
I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS. I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived.
Every time I start a new novel, it seems like an impossible undertaking. If I tried to do too much too quickly, I would get lost and feel overwhelmed. I have to go slow, and give things a chance to take form and grow.
She grounded me. I have become very disciplined now. I would never have written the books without her. Definitely the cleverest thing I ever did was to marry Santa. Maybe it's the only clever thing I did.
I used to throw cooking parties in university. Everyone would come over - sometimes you'd just do a mac and cheese, but if you do that better than everyone else, you can get people to come to you.
I was obsessed with movies, and it ended up being the tool with which I could make friends. Because I was too painfully shy in other circumstances, I would say, 'Hey, do you want to make a movie?' And that's how I made friends, and it was also my escape.
Even when I was much younger, whatever I did, I wanted to do it to the best of my abilities. When I came home from school, I would be the one doing my homework while my siblings would be watching TV and putting it off until later.
For 'The Journal of Finn Reardon,' I traveled to New York City and walked the streets where Finn and his friends would have lived, worked, and played. I visited the Tenement Museum on Orchard Street and toured an actual flat in which families like Finn's might have lived.
When I founded Stitch Fix, I wanted to create a company that I would want to work at for the rest of my life.
If I'm not in the dead heat of working on something, I can end up spending tons and tons of time on the Web, and I hate it. I feel the same shame I did in grad school when I was pretty much addicted to reruns of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation'. I wish someone would make the Web just go away. Just remove it from the earth.
Since I first picked up the violin, I've been very interested in tone and texture: I would have very visceral reactions to the texture of a snare drum or a pedal steel guitar or a violin.
If I were a customer, and I was given a dish with peppers, I would hate it. I also don't like blood sausage.
Everyone talks about, 'Get your foot in the door,' but I never understood that mentality. Why would I want to go in that house? Why not build my own house? Why not take a chair and smash a window?
I write incredibly slowly. And, on top of that, I spent my entire youth and twenties working like a dog, so one of the things that happened when I finished 'Drown' was that I got busy living. I'd never travelled, I'd never seen anything. So I did as much travelling as my job teaching would allow.
I'm totally pro-porg! I would not eat a porg. They're so cute; you can't eat them. They're friends!
I know a lot of writers who would much rather be writing the Great American Novel, but they've got bills to pay and alimony, and so they take a job at a less-than-reputable paper. You know, you do what you gotta do.
The hardest thing is spending twelve hours a day accommodating the rest of the world, then going home at night and criticizing it. I would be curious about what I'd write if I didn't have to worry about offending.
I used to look at horror movies as being really real and it would totally freak me out and give me nightmares. Now I watch and think, 'whoa how'd they do that?'
In the back of my head, I always thought it would be great to become an actress on a sitcom.
I love Mickey Mantle. Would I have felt the same if I had known when I was eight years old what I know now?
I'd always thought that 'NYPD Blue' really would open those doors. While I think it created a much broader template for cable, I don't think it really did that much for network television.
In high school, we would give away rulers to our friends that said, 'Jesus loves you.' I couldn't put together the concept that Jesus loves you, but if you don't love him back, you'll burn in hell forever. I worried, 'I'm rejecting the Holy Spirit, so I'm definitely going to burn in hell.'
People sometimes ask who I would cast in my books and I never have any idea. I don't think I could ever write a book thinking of it as a movie the whole time. This would be like building a house and filling it with furniture just so you could have blueprints.
In the harshness of the world of technology - in which feelings do not count anymore - the hope for a saving love grows, a love which would be given freely and generously.
My father was the youngest of seven, and nobody lived to be 60. And so we were always sitting shiva in my house, and my father would say, 'Life goes on.'
