I'm a pop culture junkie. I'm a People magazine reader, an US Weekly subscriber; all of those celebrity magazines get my dollar.

I'd say that most of life seems to me to be that way, a mixture of the mundane and the mythic, when you're living the life of the mind.

I don't see the direct correlation between my personal life and the novel I'm writing until I'm at the end of the novel or very close to it.

It's amazing what you can accomplish when you know you have to hit the ground running.

As writers, we live very much in our own minds much of the time, buzzing in our unconscious spaces as we go about the business of living in the world.

I feel that if I establish the world or the premise from the first line, then I can get the reader to come with me where I want her to go.

When a certain show or film or celebrity captures the imagination of the masses that has a good deal to say about us, I think, and what is happening in our collective psyche.

I could have a lot of fun with Michael Jackson, I'm sure.

As I get older, I'm finding that I recognize certain celebrities only because they frequently grace the pages of US Weekly, but beyond that, I have no idea what they do.

As a reader I gravitate toward work that rests in the gray area, that doesn't come with easy answers.

I've realized that with each novel I seem to set out a kind of puzzle for myself. And I am never sure in the process of writing a first draft how it's all going to turn out.

We must have courage to bet on our ideas on the calculated risk and to act. Everyday living requires courage if life is to be effective and bring happiness.

A throne is only a bench covered with velvet.

The great thing about an independent film is that you're too busy working, and you're too busy hoping to God to get it done.

A single mom tries when things are hard. She never gives up. She believes in her family, even when things are tough. She knows that above all things... a mother's love is more than enough.

Whoever says Americas best days are behind it are looking the wrong direction.

In a way, I started out to be a baritone player.

If it wasn't for O'Flanagan's Pub on Manhattan's Upper East Side, I don't know where I would have spent my Friday nights as a young man.

Never allow yourself to break, and always remain unbreakable.

I had always been a free spirit, and always gotten what I wanted.

When you're making an album with people who made your favorite records as a rebellious teenager, it feels like you've achieved something.