When I'm composing a scene for the first time, I try to imitate my character. The less critical distance the better - particularly when they're acting badly.

When I read a book I liked, I would get a pen and one of my father's legal pads and rewrite it from memory as if I had thought of it myself. It was a clear sign that I wanted to be involved in writing, even if it was just pretend at that point.

More than periods where I don't write anything, I have periods where I just write junk and I know I'm writing junk but I can't stop.

In order to describe a particular subculture, you might want to portray people who are typical or representative of that subculture; but to dramatize it, to make it an interesting setting for a story, you want to bring someone anomalous into that setting, to see how she conforms to it, and it to her.

My father was a great inspiration, and there was a bit of competition between us. He'd work in his studio, and I'd work in my space, but the door was always half open.

When I'm talking about a product, before it was a product, it was in my brain. So if I have an inspiration, I will literally get up in the middle of the night, and I'll dream about my customer... I don't feel like it's selling. I feel like it's talking about my children.

The legacies of Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, of Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein, stand as an inspiration for all who work for peace.

Bali is one of those places you can just keep going back to, and everything is there: the infrastructure, the culture, the art, the beautiful villas. My wife Liv and I go there quite often because we know that when we do arrive, it's like an instant holiday.