Generally, I read nonfiction. Theres very little fiction that I enjoy enough to spend my time reading. I am generally a nonfiction guy.

The minute you become a leader of a country, you go into a very small club. You join that sort of pantheon of other world leaders.

If you have distance from the events, then your story can work as an analogy or parable, rather than its literal narrative.

To what degree are historians chroniclers of the truth and to what degree are they just novelists, frankly?

Firms are a bit concerned about things like oil prices and US growth but actually the change (in firms expectations) is quite small so I think broadly theyre looking for more of the same.

I wrote 'Hereafter' quickly and without mapping it out too much or being too schematic. As an exercise, I think that was incredibly important.

Movies feel like work, and reading fiction feels like work, whereas reading nonfiction feels like pleasure.

I just try and do something good. But as a writer, you're slightly out of control.

I am not a politics wonk. I like the idea of my writing reflecting more about who I am or other people.

The real beauty in my professional experience has been friendships and collaborations with filmmakers.

I read nonfiction. There's very little fiction that I enjoy enough to spend my time reading. I am generally a nonfiction guy.

Gaiety alone as it were is the hard cash of happiness everything else is just a promissory note.

It's easy to underestimate the real cost of home ownership.

You can always find the sample that covers what you're hearing, but barely...it allows me to really concentrate on words.

When Van Halen started out, there was no path to fame. We just played what we liked. Even today it always comes down to the simplicity of rock and roll.

I identify with someone wanting something to work out, but not being able to get through the rocks to the river.

The dark book has been terribly popular. Dark characters, dysfunction, and all sorts of things from reality that are true in our world.

The theater of the mind is impossible to compete with, and I like the idea that with a few suggestions, each reader forms in his or her own mind what a character or a place looks like.

I'm not a period babe. Not at all.

Somewhere inside, we hear a voice. It leads us in the direction of the person we wish to become. But it is up to us whether or not to follow.

We are incarcerating more people on a per capita basis in California than any country in the world other than South Africa or the Soviet Union.