I'm very rigid about my schedule. I sit down at 8 A.M., and the Internet blocker goes on. My standard time is 120 minutes. I'm a compulsive writer, so it reminds me to stop writing... If I write more than that, I turn into an ogre for my kids.
If I hadn't had a baby, a part of me thinks I might have turned up on the red carpets all the time and gone, 'Hi, it's me!' Maybe other people do it because they haven't got kids and they've nowhere else to be. But because I have, I don't feel like t...
I think readers are always patient. Look at the 'Harry Potter' series. Some have given up on this generation of kids as game and TV addicts, but lots of people spend lots of time patiently reading through hundreds of pages of dense prose. I think rea...
As an Anglo-Indian kid in Bolton, I was basically in a minority of one. That was a source of misery, but at the same time, one of the effects of receiving the message that you don't belong to the club is that you watch the club with detachment. The f...
I think if my daughter was interested in acting, I would find ways for her to act in theater that has to do with her school or a kids' improvisational thing. There are ways to do it where you're not on a movie set with 60 adults, which I loved at the...
When I was a kid, I wanted to emulate Mel Blanc, who is arguably one of the most legendary voiceover recording artists of our time. I used to watch all the cartoons where he would voice Daffy, Elmer Fudd and Porky the Pig. I knew one day I wanted to ...
When I started 'Third Watch,' I knew I was going to be with the firefighters and lifting, so I was doing yoga, running, and swimming - all at the same time. I didn't have a kid then. Now I don't have time for that. I want to spend time with my son an...
Back in high school, I wrote a novel about a character named Bart Simpson. I thought it was a very unusual name for a kid at the time. I had this idea of an angry father yelling 'Bart,' and Bart sounds kind of like bark - like a barking dog.
I certainly wasn't able to get it when I was a kid growing up on the Lower East Side; it was very hard at that time for me to balance what I really believed was the right way to live with the violence I saw all around me - I saw too much of it among ...
Two records put me over the top with hip-hop. One of them was 'Planet Rock,' and the other had no lyrics - it was called 'Numbers,' from a group called Kraftwerk. Every kid in the 'hood in New York and New Jersey was popping, locking, and breaking to...
I'm an active and involved senator. It's very difficult to do the job I want to do and spend as much time as I want with my kids... It is time for me to be a father first to them, and I realize as I watch them grow and become young adults that I won'...
I was influenced by a lot of stand-up comedians... Eddie Murphy back when he was doing 'Raw.' I watched that so many times as a kid, I can probably still quote the entire thing to this day. Chris Rock. Dave Chappelle. George Carlin. A lot of the guys...
I don't teach anymore, but I can still clearly see fifth period after lunch - that's a real tough time to teach. And I tried to imagine writing a story that would appeal to those kids - even when they're tired, even when they're bouncing off the wall...
From the time I was 9 years old, I loved magic. I was an only child, and I think that had a big impact on me. I always had grown-up friends even though I was a little kid. I would take the train from Lido Beach into Manhattan, and I'd hang out in mag...
With the kids around, this is a different world to me. I spend a lot of time with them till they go to their playschool. I wake up early, have breakfast with them. I come back from work and am with them again till they go to bed by 10 P.M. Touch wood...
When I was a kid, my parents would play badminton, but I hardly joined them. I'd just pick up their racquets and fiddle around. Check out how the racquet was made... toss it around to see how light it was! At the time, I didn't even know I'd play bad...
In the South we experienced, you know, some black kids who gave us a hard time because - cause 'you talk white.' We didn't talk white. We talked fairly proper. Plus, we had a Midwestern accent, so we didn't have a Southern accent, either. So it wasn'...
In a way, 'On the Road's greatest victory is that nobody's eyes will be opened any longer by reading it; the last time I met any young people who were actually 'on the road' was when I covered Occupy St. Louis. Those few, dirty kids were fighting a b...
I was pretty nervous when I met Robert DeNiro. I kind of felt like a kid in a candy store for the first time. I couldn't wipe the grin off of my face. But Bobby DeNiro was really, really sweet and made me feel very comfortable. He's very low-key and ...
My kids started school, so having a strong base in Melbourne has been a key priority. I'm not daunted by the travel. People say, 'It's so far to Australia,' and I say, 'You get on the plane, you eat well, you sleep, you wake up - and you're there.'
I never get enough sleep, even when I travel. I wake up in the middle of the night, either with the help of my kids or because my mind is going. I wish I got eight hours a night, but it is more like an interrupted six or seven. The secret is to go to...
