My family trained me to be polite to people I had just met, and that included strangers. You speak when you're spoken to. You look people in the eye when they address you and when you address them back.

I think of myself as someone who thinks largely through writing. Thus I write more than most people, and I write in many different forms. I think of myself as the kind of person who writes, rather than as one kind of writer or another.

I think of myself as a very lazy writer, though other people see it differently.

From 1968 on, I was pretty much the black, gay SF writer.

My background is in largely in theatre and acting. I grew up in a town with a well-respected Shakespeare Festival, and I fell in with some kids whose parents worked there. We staged all-kid versions of 'Hamlet', 'Cymbeline', a few others. All the while, I was making short films; monster movies, slapstick comedies, claymation.

When you are young, nothing is more important than football, but as you get older, you get married, have kids and lose people. Then you realise your family is more important. This comes with age.

When I was skating I felt I represented not just my family and the people who helped me make it to that point, but also New York and the country.

Around eight or nine years back, I participated in 'Sa Re Ga Ma Pa.' The point of coming on the show was that a person coming from music family can also compete with people from all over India.