Growing up, movies were something my family and, later, my friends and I would stay up all night talking about. The movies I remember moved me and forced you to think about things that made you know yourself better.

The military has been actually remarkable at dealing with race, but gender is an issue.

There is no reason why challenging themes and engaging stories have to be mutually exclusive - in fact, each can fuel the other. As a filmmaker, I want to entertain people first and foremost. If out of that comes a greater awareness and understanding of a time or a circumstance, then the hope is that change can happen.

The issue of assault in the military is something that they've gone to great lengths to try to deal with - and have not entirely dealt with yet.

The one mentality I've always tried to have is that no matter what stage in your career that you are in as a musician or a performer or a songwriter or whatever, there's always more to learn.

It was hard to know if anything, any one particular thing, increased my career or not.

I'd like to walk into a room sometime and be introduced as the author of something other than that play. There's always one thing in a career that has more impact than anything else. In my case, 'The Subject Was Roses' was that thing.

I went to work in an office and learned, among other lessons, to do things I did not care for, and to do them well. Before I left this office, two of my books had already been published.