The main challenge that television presents is that I have a tendency to say things with a great deal of precision and accuracy. Often a description of that sort, which will work in a book because people can read it slowly - they can turn the pages b...
In Merlin, Arthur has a very loyal friend who keeps him on his toes. Arthur enjoys those challenges, and there is a lot of great banter between them. Meanwhile, in Arthur, Merlin has a friend he can really rely on. Merlin knows that when it comes the...
One of the main lessons I have learned during my five years as Secretary-General is that broad partnerships are the key to solving broad challenges. When governments, the United Nations, businesses, philanthropies and civil society work hand-in-hand,...
I hate shows, personally, where people stand around tossing stuff at each other, and any character can say any line, because you don't believe any of these characters care for each other. I used to fight with my friends who wrote on 'Seinfeld,' becau...
I've always loved dogs and have had one since I was three. We bought her from a kid selling puppies out of a cardboard box on the street where we lived in New York City. Great dog. We named her 'Marcella' after a Raggedy Ann character. She grew up wi...
I love being an enigma. Every time I'm tempted to respond to someone who tries to put me in a box, politically - you know, someone who gets on the Internet and says, you're pro-gun, or you're anti-gun - I stop and say to myself, 'This is great; this ...
I'm happy to say that at 62, I think I've reached that point where stuff doesn't bother me as much, and my gratitude level has gone way up, especially having gone through the loss that I've had, and losing so many of the great artists that I was clos...
You can go up to the editor of 'Vogue,' and she might think I have horrible style, or maybe she thinks I have great style. Who knows? I don't really know too much about it: I just know what I like and what I don't like. I love clothes and making my o...
You don't know what inspires you. You like to think you know what inspires you, but in the final analysis I don't think you really do. It's great to look at a blank sheet of paper, you know, and walk up to an instrument and not know what's gonna happ...
I remember my first commercial. This is really great 'Degrassi' trivia: The character Toby on 'Degrassi,' played by Jake Goldsbie, he and I were in both of our first commercial ever when we were four. It was for Tiger Toys, this old Game Boy-type thi...
Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it's far removed from your situation. This is what I try to tell my students: this is one great thing that liter...
The point is that when I see a sunset or a waterfall or something, for a split second it's so great, because for a little bit I'm out of my brain, and it's got nothing to do with me. I'm not trying to figure it out, you know what I mean? And I wonder...
When I meet people who say - which they do all of the time - 'I must just tell you, my great aunt had cancer of the elbow and the doctors gave her 10 seconds to live, but last I heard she was climbing Mount Everest,' and so forth, I switch off quite ...
I grew up in a small town in Kansas, so I love meeting the fans. Those are the people who spend time out of their day to watch the things that I've done, and I've gotten to do some great supernatural stuff - 'Teen Wolf' and 'The Gates' before that - ...
The fun of the game is right now. A lot of people don't really realize that. They think you have to get to the top to start having fun, and it's not. It's the journey getting to the top where everything is always great. I'm on the 'Ferris Bueller' th...
At 16, when I was at Henry M. Gunn High School, I had a crush on the English teacher, and my grades improved dramatically. This great school had only 400 students, mostly children of Stanford professors, and it was more usual to have classes under on...
One of the great things about being a writer/journalist is that my boss loves me to go out and do features on being someone else. I did a feature on Kate Middleton, where I went to an incredible fancy state home in the countryside, put on a wedding d...
The Weezer 'Blue' Album is a classic. I think My Morning Jacket's 'Circuital' is a great album to have. Any Led Zeppelin album. Pink Floyd 'The Dark Side Of The Moon' or 'Animals.' I always catch myself at concerts being like, 'Oh, I just stared at t...
When I run into a person or a kid that comes up and gives me the spiel about, 'Hey, I got your record at this time in my life, and it really helped me,' that stuff totally still rings true. If you're standing there talking to someone, it's really eas...
Soaps are great. You learn to work very fast - some say superficially, but that's not really true. You do some very serious character work. I've never had any feelings about a stigma attached to it, and nowadays there seems to be less snobbery about ...
'The Blair Witch Project' is great for motion sickness. The first time you see it, it is extremely creepy. The first time I saw it, I saw it on a bootleg tape on a tour bus before it had even come out. It was one of the first movies I'd seen like tha...
