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

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.

Those who hope for no other life are dead even for this.

Isn't it funny how day by day nothing changes. But when you look back, everything is different?

It is the duty of our men to enroll themselves in the national services. We need all our manpower for defence. For the military and... we need a quarter of a million men.

The Second Amendment is a constitutional right. I didn't make it up, the Republican Party didn't make it up. It's in the Constitution. I think it's just as important as any of the other rights in our constitution.

There is a lot of 'Halo' movie material no one has ever seen in New Zealand.

As a dancer running around the world, I always questioned whether that's what I wanted to do.

And the White Album is important to me for different reasons. One - I had left the band on the White Album.

We take it for granted that we can see at all times of day and night. But there was a time, not all that long ago, in the age before electricity, when night brought total darkness - and with it, a not-so-small amount of terror. We get a sense of this when we go camping or when there's a power outage, and our fear of the darkness is primal.

It's hard for the same people who put you in the ditch to pull you out of it.

I didn't get here for my acting... but I love show business.

Normally you read a screenplay - and I read a lot of them - and the characters don't feel like people. They feel like plot devices or cliches or stereotypes.

You know, I don't really think you have to play nice guys.

Chronic means long term. Traumatic means associated with trauma. Encephalopathy means a bad brain.

I have a very genuine care for individuals; I have a very genuine sense of the power of individuals to make a difference, a very genuine belief that people matter, a very genuine belief of wanting the very best for individuals.

If you will discipline yourself to make your mind self sufficient you will thereby be least vulnerable to injury from the outside.

I'm very interested in the more grass-roots consequences of the economic meltdown: issues related to mortgage foreclosures, debt collection, and the practices of credit card companies and others who hold a lot of consumer debt.

An unimaginative person can neither be reverent or kind.

If you're OK with being clumsy, it's funny. But if you are super embarrassed, people are going to laugh at you.

Any method involving the notion of entropy the very existence of which depends on the second law of thermodynamics will doubtless seem to many far fetched and may repel beginners as obscure and difficult of comprehension.

The Bible is the greatest of all books; to study it is the noblest of all pursuits; to understand it, the highest of all goals.

I'd watch old movies with Judy Garland, Shirley Temple and Bette Davis and long to be part of that glamorous world. A lot of that glamour is gone now. In my own small way, I hope I'm bringing some of it back. But it would be great if I could inspire women to dress up.

I know it's superficial, and you can't measure art, which is supposed to be up to the individual, but I've watched the Oscars since I was a baby with my mother.

The best thing we can do to save the planet is set a good example for our kids at home.

New York as an industry is the best city for real estate. You're in a very transparent market. If you need to liquidate, you make three phone calls and you could sell something, even in the worst market. It is also less forgiving; if you make a mistake you can lose money.