When you're writing fiction or poetry... it really comes down to this: indifference to everything except what you're doing... A young writer could do worse than follow the advice given in those lines.
You have to learn a few things, which you do along the way, but basically, poetry is a matter of the ear. Iambic pentameters or what constitutes a stanza comes naturally - your ears will know.
Why do writers, say, give up a job in economics and decide to write poetry? Or, why do they give up a job in a bank and decide to paint, like Krishan Khanna? They want to convey something.
Most people read poetry listening for echoes because the echoes are familiar to them. They wade through it the way a boy wades through water, feeling with his toes for the bottom: The echoes are the bottom.
The big stars I felt a kinship with were never the romantic leads. It wasn't Steve McQueen or Robert Redford - it was people like Walter Matthau and Anthony Quinn. My big hero was Tommy Cooper.
I have nothing against romance. I believe that we must hold on to the right to dream and to be romantic. But an Indian village is not something that I would romanticize that easily.
Personally, I can't see why it would be any less romantic to find a husband in a nice four-color catalogue than in the average downtown bar at happy hour.
But other vampire stories? Well, no, I really haven't read too many, and I can't say I'm crazy about romantic vampires anyway - to me the vampire is simply an evil monster.
The whole idea of genre and categorising films is a critic's construct. For me, I just try and make stories and see where they go, but there's nothing wrong with horror; there's nothing wrong with romantic comedies.
Once I got married and had kids, I moved away from romantic roles, because it seemed wrong to have my three-year-old wondering why Daddy was kissing someone else.
I'm always trying to reach a transcendent point, a romantic point, but reach it in a really unconventional way, a really profane way. To get to that romantic, touching, heartbreaking place, but through a lot of acts of profanity.
There's nothing more romantic after not seeing your husband for four months than to have our first night back together, on a Broadway stage, with 12 million people watching.
It seemed romantic but also tragic - people would be winning but then lose it all, or crash but fight on, break bones but get back on their bikes and try to finish. Just getting to the end was seen as an achievement in itself.
Stand-up is like a row boat: it's fun and romantic when you're choosing to do it. But if you have no other choice than to be in a row boat it's not as enjoyable; that's survival.
If I were given a choice between two films and one was dark and explored depraved, troubled or sick aspects of our culture, I would always opt for that over the next romantic comedy.
You can tell a lot about a man from his hands. If they don't have any scars or calluses on them, you might as well assume they cry at romantic comedy films, too.
In terms of romantic films, all-time romantic films, I really like 'Gone With the Wind.' And I realize I sound so cliched saying that, but there's something so absolutely romantic about it.
I'd like to be played as a child by Natalie Wood. I'd have some romantic scenes as Audrey Hepburn and have gritty black-and-white scenes as Patricia Neal.
The most impactful place that I've been to where I was just completely awestruck, happy, moved is Victoria Falls between Zambia and Zimbabwe. It is probably the most beautiful and romantic place in the world.
When you see a bad romantic comedy, you see the script, the director, and the actors trying to create this warmth and this pathos and this feeling that you care about them. That cannot be manufactured - it's either there or it isn't.
I'm a hopeless romantic. It's disgusting. It really is. I've seen 'While You Were Sleeping', like, twenty times, and I still believe in the whole Prince Charming thing.
