I've written about 15 screenplays and they all sold - they were all sold on pitches.

What makes me laugh? Richard Nixon always made me laugh.

Generally with the Oscars or the Emmys there isn't much you can do until the nominations are announced. Then you know what kind of year you're dealing with - what's been overlooked, what the issues are.

They make a humongous profit, but the people that work on the shows don't get paid a lot because they're working on the Oscars show. It's the biggest show in the world.

Eddie Izzard is absolutely brilliant. I would love to write something for him.

It's the biggest party in the world, and you have to keep the whole thing percolating, which is difficult because a lot of awards most people don't care about.

I mean, I've sold all these scripts and nothing's been made. Studios have closed, stars have died. I had a director find Jesus. And the pictures just don't get made.

I write screenplays that don't get made and pilots that don't get picked up, and I re-write other people's movies, and those are all different kinds of fees.

I do a lot of screen re-writing.

It's really live television, the way God meant it to be.

I mean, when I started out I was billing per hour, like a shrink because you would sit with somebody and work. But most of it, if it's for a live show it's usually a buy-out. A flat fee.

I've written about 15 screenplays and they all sold - they were all sold on pitches.

As I'm always fond of telling hosts at the Oscars who are doing it for their first time, for everybody who wins, there are four people who don't. As the evening wears on, the room fills up with losers, and then they are bitter.

Every single line on the Oscar show is negotiated. Unless you've been there, you have no idea how it is put together. It's like nothing else on earth. I'm writing a book about it, but I have to throw in my sexual escapades to make sure it sells.

For years, I was compared to Wookiees, especially after I did the 'Star Wars Holiday Special.' I have some photos of me with a few of the Wookiees on the set, and it's hard to tell us apart.

I have one rave 'New York Times' review framed next to a flop 'Los Angeles Times' review. And it's for the same show. These people watched the same show. That's what happens. They love it, they hate it.

I think I intimidate hecklers because I weigh more than most of them.

I've got more chins than a San Francisco phonebook.

I've learned that most of gay America is coupled up, or looking to be. No wonder gay marriage has such traction. So many of us are already in it, so of course we want the legal benefits.

Musicals have clearly gotten more physical. You never saw Ethel Merman doing step aerobics.

My assistant says I'm an eBay auction waiting to happen. I have a very large collection of T-shirts... about 4,000 now. Maybe I'll pillage it someday. I have resisted the offers to do a line of T-shirts.

My skirt fell off on stage during a performance of Hairspray on Broadway, revealing my fat suit over my own natural fat suit. I turned to the audience and said, 'Now you know why I spent six years in a square.'

Of course I adored and wanted to be Catwoman. That goes without saying.

The Oscars are about the dynamics of that moment, of that season. It reflects what's been going on in the world every year through the movies. And a lot of times, what's popular at the movies is popular because of what's going on in the world at that moment.

When AIDS hit, lots of people banded together to take care of each other and do what the government wasn't doing. When you grow up Jewish, as I have, you learn that everybody hates you, no one's going to help you, and you have to take care of yourself. That's a great maxim to the gay community, and we took it to heart; we took care of our own.

Who knew we had all this O.C.D. in the world? Well actually, I suppose it's pretty obvious. It explains Sudoku, doesn't it?

Gratitude is the moral memory of mankind.

I don't feel my best right now, but at the same time, I'm not trying to find any excuses or anything.

The soul is neither inside nor outside the body; neither proximate to nor separate from it.

Every show finds its groove, I would say. The first season is the season to figure out the dynamics, the workflow.

New York grew up before the automobile. And even though it's full of cars, its shape and form didn't get created around the automobile.

One very clear memory I have of college is that I never learned anything in the big lectures. I have a feeling I'd have done even worse if they'd been on a laptop screen.

I wasn't playing mind games with anybody, I just said what I said. I am responsible for it, but I wish everybody would fall asleep for that one and let me go out there and do my thing.

Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.

The truth that survives is simply the lie that is pleasantest to believe.

Being homeschooled for half of my life allowed me to choose my own curriculum and find things I really enjoy, and that's kind of inspired me. I've always been intrigued in or interested in the topics I've been covering.

I was born in Washington State and have lived here for 42 plus years.

It is inevitable that those to whom is vouchsafed a long life of usefulness should outlive the friends of their youth.

It's not how old you are, it`s how you are old.

I was involved in some of the very first meetings that created the maps that showed what would happen if you had a Category 1, 2 or 3 hurricane in New York.

I think we need to have competitive tax rates in order to create jobs in this country. And I think it should be fair.

My only requirement for that first story was that there had to be a fight or an explosion on every page. Naturally, no one wanted to publish it, but I liked the character, did a few stories to keep my hand in.

We shot 'CBGB' in Savannah, and then I took another project there afterwards called 'Killing Winston Jones.' It's a dark comedy with Richard Dreyfuss, Danny Glover, Jon Heder, Danny Masterson and Aly Michalka. It's a great cast and a beautiful film.

Do not trust all men but trust men of worth the former course is silly the latter a mark of prudence.

Bring them on.

I tend to learn things physically - I guess it's my dance training. I never want to make too many choices too soon - so, while I am thinking about the character and thinking about her history, which is very vague in terms of what is given in the text, I am starting to have ideas about what her home is.

I teach a lot of graduate creative writing classes, and on the first day, I like to go around the room and ask everybody what's the last book you've read that you really loved. And all of the women tend to give me chick lit titles. And to me, that's sort of disappointing because it's their only exposure to fiction somehow.

Please know that being 80 is not a scary thing. When you're 80, your life is much freer.

A gluten-free diet still allows you access to almost every fruit and vegetable, a variety of grains and legumes, your pick of dairy products, fresh meats and fish and a whole slew of special gluten-free delights to satisfy your pretzel-bagel-muffin-doughnut craving.