For Marvel, we've never looked at any of our characters in terms of gender, race, or religion. It truly is about, who is the best character for the story? If that character happens to be a woman, fantastic.

When I grew up reading comics, the part in the Marvel universe that was so exciting was that you could have a battle going on in 'Iron Man' and then, suddenly, Thor would fly overhead, and you realized, 'Oh, it's all one place.'

There is no one who is more conflicted in the Marvel Universe, in my opinion, than Matthew Murdock. Is he his father's son, or is he the son of his father? Is he someone who is going to solve the world's problems in a court room, or is he someone who is going to solve the world's problems with his fist?

I'm not sure that, for a lot of people, the real world is an easy place to live in. And yet we still soldier on.

I am an artist no matter what I do. I live for creativity. I think everyone should. It is the antithesis of being destructive.

The imagination has its limits, and you have to face up to that.

Presumed Innocent' was written over a six to seven year period with intervals in between where I was figuring out the end of the book and writing other stuff... My life as a writer was carried on against the odds. I had written four unpublished novels by then... as a writer of fiction, I hadn't gotten very far. I just wanted to do it.

I think of myself more as a filmmaker or as a film person than as strictly just a writer. I don't come out of playwriting or anything like that.