If you are stymied as a writer, if it's just not coming together, then take the pressure off and don't feel that you need to write 1,000 words today; just write one really good sentence.

On the one hand, I'm this guy who grew up in the suburbs of New York City to very conservative parents, and the other side of me is fascinated by the peripheries of our culture, maybe because that's where our culture is most in transition and where there's likely to be conflict.

As a novelist, there are three phone calls you never expect to receive in your lifetime because if you waited for them you would grow despairing - one calling from Stockholm with a Swedish accent, one from the NBA, and one from Oprah Winfrey.

My wife and I would be very comfortable having a baby at home or using one of the terrific nurse-midwives at the hospital.

Within 18 months of my parents' marriage in 1900, my mother fell in love with an Englishman who would have described himself as a gentleman but who was, in fact, nothing more than a devious adventurer.

I have so many e-mails from people who are like, 'I never knew a family could be happy like this... My parents hate each other. I hate my brother. We fight all the time. I never wanted to have kids before I saw your family.'

It wasn't easy to get the family to this point. I had to work two jobs. I had all nine kids. I stayed there with them and got them all into show biz. I don't care what anyone else said, I did my job.

I think it's up to the parents to discern what their child is watching on television.