Before that I wanted to be a magazine illustrator - I probably would have painted Gothic scenes.

Before that I wanted to be a magazine illustrator - I probably would have painted Gothic scenes.

I finally did work out a very good relationship with my father, but it was rough growing up. We had a lot of conflict, and I think it surfaced in many of my works.

I didn't send back any of the royalty checks.

Science is about applying what we know and asking what we don't know.

As both a fine artist and a graphic designer, I specialize in the visual presentation of words.

I'm really inspired to build a billion-dollar company. The hardest part is building the vehicle to get you there.

The less people know about 'Paranormal Activity,' the more they enjoy it.

Everybody makes mistakes. I also make them. But the biggest mistake I ever made was falling for you

I haven't really thought about where to scatter my ashes when the time comes, but I doubt that it would be in space.

I was a late bloomer. I was 38 when my first book was out and 43 when my first crime novel was out. I had a story that could only be told as a crime story. I think the genre is good; it deals with the fundamental questions of life and death. The problem is there are too many bad crime stories.

We do a lot of bird-watching up in the country, but we almost never have a chance to people-watch. There simply aren't enough human beings up here: there is nowhere you can park yourself with a cup of coffee and observe the species on parade.

No man can be subject to any laws, excepting those which have received the assent of himself or his representatives and which are promulgated beforehand and applied legally.

Human rights, race relations, gender politics, health care, and foreign policy - it's a lot to keep track of, and yet all of these things affect us in our daily lives. Making sense of everything requires meticulous unpacking of feelings, delicate navigation of social norms, and a community of love to help along the way.

Peter Lucas and I live in Durham but spend a great of time in North Wales, where we have a cottage in the mountains, and in Vermont, USA, with my sister - who is a children's writer married to a poet.

I'm interested in why people compromise when they shouldn't. It comes back to what V's about in a sense. We've all got ideals, but given the right circumstances, we'll forget about them and put them behind us. I'm very interested in why people do that.

Talk is cheap

When things could've gone really bad, rugby caught my interest and I really stuck with it. The sport brought me, maybe off the streets where we'd be fighting, into putting in a good effort in the rugby field where you're kind of rewarded for that rough behaviour instead of in trouble with the law.

When I first began doing TV pilots, my expectations were high. I didn't understand that world. So when 'Weeds' took off, I was so happy. Especially as I was just a guest star in the pilot. But once it got picked up, they made me a regular cast member.

You taught me to be nice so nice that now I am so full of niceness I have no sense of right and wrong no outrage no passion.

Many Christians have so busied themselves with programs and activities that they no longer know how to be silent and meditate on God's word or recognize the mysteries that are in the Person of Christ.

I was raised with adults. I skipped knowing how to interact as a normal teenage person.

We walk away from our dreams afraid we may fail, or worse yet, afraid we may succeed.

In baseball you have individual responsibility, and if you fail it, you get an error. But at the same time, your focus is on the common goal of the team to win. This is part of what resonates with people about baseball. This is how they would like society to work.

There are so many good authors; there's no shortage of them.

It is like visiting one's funeral, like visiting loss in its purest and most monumental form, this wild darkness, which is not only unknown but which one cannot enter as oneself.

You have to be strong and calm to overcome difficult moments.

Around the time President Lyndon B. Johnson was declaring a War on Poverty in the 1960s, federal, state and local governments began accelerating a veritable War on the Private Sector.