I can never read this book, just like I can never see a movie that I wrote a screenplay for. I can read it and see it physically, but I can't accurately judge it. I'm too close to it. If I read it ten times I'll have ten different reactions.

I started thinking about my relationship with my students; I'm this guy who comes in from book - and movie - land and descends on angel wings into their classroom.

You can't take a character anywhere they don't expect the character to go. But within those confines is where creativity lies.

I write because I can't imagine not writing.

Writers spend three years rearranging 26 letters of the alphabet. It's enough to make you lose your mind day by day.

The kind of event on a conveyor belt that causes a fire occurs in a variety of industrial environments, not uniquely in coal environments.

I don't need all that much - I just need to know who my characters are and what kind of jam they're going to get into, and I'll write myself out of their jam.

I do small cameos here and there but nothing that requires more than a paragraph of talking, because I'm just an amateur. The movie is a whole different reality.

I write because I write - as anyone in the arts does. You're a painter because you feel you have no choice but to paint. You're a writer because this is what you do.

If I can tell you the story from beginning to end in five minutes, I'm ready to start writing. Then it's a constant spreading out of that five minutes.

I'd love to be a saxophonist. I don't know why, but I pretend I'm the saxophonist when I listen to music. I have about as much chance playing the sax as I do learning how to fly.

I think the definition of an artist is not necessarily tied into excellence or talent; an artist is somebody who, if you took away their freedom to make art, would lose their mind.

I have offices all over the place and I avoid work everywhere. I don't like to write - I like to be finished.

If you're writing a book that takes place in New York in the moment, you can't not write about 9-11; you can't not integrate it. My main character's view is the Statue of Liberty and the Trade Center. It doesn't have to take over, but it has to be acknowledged.

I can never read this book, just like I can never see a movie that I wrote a screenplay for. I can read it and see it physically, but I can't accurately judge it. I'm too close to it. If I read it ten times I'll have ten different reactions.

Republicans went off track. We were spending too much money.

A queen keeps a court that is spoken about. A goddess keeps a court that is never forgotten.

I like men in suits. Men in suits I think are so sexy. But I love men in suits who own their own businesses. That's even sexier... I just love a guy who has his own thing going on and believes in it.

Adversity provides the opportunity for the best part of us to shine.

If Mr. Bush and Mr. Forbes don't get most of the votes, they should be arrested for wasting money.

The sluggard does not plow after the season, so he begs during the harvest and has nothing.

My faith helps me understand that circumstances don't dictate my happiness, my inner peace.

Pretty much anything you care to imagine can happen in a fantasy, which in turn means you can really crank up the intensity of the tale you're telling.

I've been bragging for over 25 years that my first New York Times bestseller was a book I copied from the U.S. Government Printing Office!

It's that I have a good personality and am a good tennis player.

At the heart of the best documentaries, there is a journey of inquiry - someone who travels out into the world, comes back with a story, and who then finds meaning in it, and intrigue; someone who tells you about something you never quite knew before, or in a way you hadn't quite thought about.

The older I grow the more earnestly I feel that the few joys of childhood are the best that life has to give.

We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.

I like Hilary Clinton. I think she's - she's a fantastic leader.

No shortcuts, work for it.

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.

No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad.

Having a place out of the city is a shortcut toward the mental reset I need.

My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom.

If you depend on God's grace there is no such thing as impossible.

My sexuality is a part of me that I really like. But it's not the totality of me.

When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice.

Some people will never change.

The honor I feel today being inducted into the Hall of Fame is beyond what words can describe. My thanks to the Hall of Fame committee, who saw fit to bestow this great honor upon me today.