I wrote eight full-length adult novels in my twenties. None of them were published.

I get letters from readers who say that they have always hated reading, but somebody suggested one of my books, they actually finished the book and enjoyed it, and they're going on to read another book. I'm thrilled that they have figured out that reading is fun.

I wrote eight full-length adult novels in my twenties. None of them were published.

I decided to write short stories because they got rejected quicker.

I love all of it, thinking up the plots, getting to know the kids in the story, their parents, backyards, pizza toppings.

Actually my first eight books were historical novels, but they were never published.

I believe my readers are crazy about their parents and want to be just like them when they grow up.

I approach serious subjects, and I like to have the good guys win and have the parents among the good guys.

I'm one of the lucky writers: plots come easily to me.

If you write a story based on a real person, you're trapped by the details of the real person and his life. It gets in the way of writing your own story.

My favorite book is always the one I'm working on at the moment.

I love writing and do not know why it is considered such a difficult, agonizing profession.

People nearly always believe, and are willing to back it up with weapons and cruelty, that their religion and way of life is better than the other person's.

I believe my voice is pretty much the same. I've written 75 books, so I'm better at it now than I was earlier in my career.

Art is for anyone. It just isn't for everyone. Still, over the past decade, its audience has hugely grown, and that's irked those outside the art world, who get irritated at things like incomprehensibility or money.

I'm just human, and I have great relationships with the people that work for me.

For me, the money isn't a big issue. I'm at the end of my career and I'm just happy to play.

Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is a freedom.

December used to be very difficult for me. For many years, I fought the transition to the new year, was generally exhausted at the end of the year, and just wanted to hide. I described myself as a 'cranky Jewish kid who felt left out by Christmas.'

The middle class has just fallen further and further behind the rich.

Now I’m feeling how I should. Never knew single could feel this good.

I think we are not serious about attacking the long-term debt problem, and that's one of the things that he's going to have to find a way to get on the agenda.

Have you never seen a strange unconnected deformed representation of a figure which seen in another point of view became proportioned and agreeable It is the picture of man.

Do anything, but let it produce joy.

A human being's first responsibility is to shake hands with himself.

What we need are not prohibitory marriage laws, but a reformed society, an educated public opinion which will teach individual duty in these matters.

I am thrilled and proud of Benjamin Watson for speaking up on behalf of innocent black lives, traditionally an unpopular stance in the mainstream media.

YouTube did more for me than 'America's Got Talent.'

So many people: Lucille Ball is the earliest incarnation of a woman I thought was funny, Joan Rivers, Roseanne, Carol Burnett, Gilda Radnor, down to current times, where you have Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, and Kristen Wiig.

Sushi is my favorite thing to do in L.A.

Time is only an idea. There is only the Reality. Whatever you think it is, it looks like that. If you call it time, it is time. If you call it existence, it is existence, and so on. After calling it time, you divide it into days and nights, months, years, hours, minutes, etc. Time is immaterial for the Path of Knowledge.

All we can do is keep going up against then as long as Ray is alive because when he dies it will not be possible to establish the truth of his innocence in a court of law.

Proper training and federal supervision in state-federal partnerships are essential to both assuring constitutional rights and enforcing our immigration laws. Our Founding Fathers' concept of federalism does not prohibit such cooperation, and we have learned from experience that joint efforts work best.

The New Age, I think, is a term that is well laid to rest.

One hot summer night in San Francisco, roughly 10 years ago, I was sitting in a crowded Pacific Heights restaurant when Alice Adams walked in with a man. She was about 60 at the time, and she was wearing a skirt that fell an inch or so above her knees and flat heels without stockings.

It was immediately clear to me that security was a cross-cutting issue, so rather than dividing the space up in parallel with each of the other areas, I wanted security cut across the areas in addition to having its own content.

Psychoanalysis is unlikely to be repealed; people are not going to go back to reading novels in order to understand themselves and their lives.

Of course I want to have a deliciously seductive story on the surface which will keep people engaged and amused, but primarily, I'm interested in other things. It's the texture of any given moment that fascinates me: what is really going on between people or in somebody's mind.