It's very easy for people to be critical of President Obama's first term, but let's face it, he didn't exactly inherit the country in the best shape.

I'm the old-fashioned type who prefers to meet a woman in a more normal setting. I don't like to feel that I'm being hunted down. I've always liked to do my own hunting when it comes to meeting women.

I've certainly done some turkeys along the way and made some dumb choices in my career, mostly early on. I'm one of the lucky ones who got to make a lot of mistakes very early when no one was paying attention.

Directors are the captains of the ship, and it's your job as the lead actor to make sure that the rest of the cast understand that by doing whatever he says.

For me, my life is a journey.

The experience of the human, male or female, cannot be completely defined by one startling, surprising, or gigantic life experience.

Perhaps it's the people whose lives have taken sudden new twists - people who have learned to embrace the creative possibilities of change - who stand the best chance of penetrating life's mysteries.

As for my writing process, there is one truth I have discovered after writing some twenty-plus books: Not every book is the same, but the middle of every book is where I really begin to question my choice of vocations. The beginning and end is usually fairly clear to me, but that middle just sucks the life right out of me.