We tend to think of our idols as kind of superheroes; maybe less so today, given that people have a tendency to overshare on social media, but when I was growing up, all you knew about these people was what they allowed you to see - which was them doing superhuman things, up on stage in an arena with all these people going crazy.

When you connect as many memories to your geography as I have, and then you see that geography change around you, you're forced to reckon with the passage of time.

When I'm old, I'd like to wake up in the morning and not really do anything - just be happy to exist. I'd like to look at my accomplishments and sit back and revel in my own achievement.

I was literally just going and applying for jobs, and I couldn't get a job, and I was getting more and more broke, and you find yourself groveling for jobs you don't even want.

There are one or two very good women military historians who use imagination, great study and research; they can put themselves in the boots of the soldier.

I'm just trying to write a good story, strictly from imagination. People just think it's random, they don't see the rewriting, phrasing of characters, choosing the words, bringing the world to light in which the characters live in. That creates an illusion that this is real.

I went to the London Academy Of Music and Dramatic Art and returned to New York where I started my career.

To say that creative writing courses are all useless is almost as silly as saying all editors are useless. Writers of all levels can benefit from other instructive voices.