I started writing short stories. I tried writing horror, mystery, science fiction. I joined a little critique group here in town and ran my stories past them. After about three years, I tackled my first novel, Subterranean. It took me 11 months to wr...
I was writing novels at eight. It was a science fiction epic, which went by the unimprovable title of 'Another Kind of Warrior.' I'd write it beginning to end, but when I'd finished it, I was another year older. The quality of writing and thought cha...
I was a sports nut. I stayed after school probably three hours every day - from fall, to winter, to spring. I went from football to basketball to track, and it started all over again. I loved all of it. I just loved being an athlete and all that it e...
I stayed in the astronaut program until 1993. People ask me why I left. I thought I had a lot of things to contribute that would be difficult to do if I stayed. I thought I could have a stronger voice as an advocate for space exploration. So I ended ...
My grandpa was the one; he started taking up golf when I was about two and introduced me to the game as far as just taking me to the driving range where I grew up playing. That was really all he had to do was let me hit a golf ball and kind of fell i...
I would love to continue in music, with writing... but I am not the kind of person who will hang around if I start to become irrelevant. If that happens, I will bow down gracefully, raise my kids, and have a garden. And I am going to let my hair go g...
I think the most important thing about dance music is the connection. If you put 80,000 people together, no one knows each other, and once the music starts, everyone loves each other. That doesn't happen with a lot of genres. If you go to a hip-hop c...
Way back in the day, when I first started and had delusions of adequacy as a cartoonist, I would listen to music. When I switched to a career as a writer, I would try to listen to music, but if the songs had lyrics they would get in the way of the wo...
I record all night and sleep all day. It started because you're excited about the music and you want to stay up longer, but over 15 years, it's become a habit. In my circle, I think a lot of musicians operate like this. When the place is quiet, you'r...
Right from the start with music, I was like, 'I'm just going to do this, and I don't care about anything else. There are certain things you have to give up, even at 13, 14: your Friday and Saturday nights, having a regular girl, lots of things like t...
When I started out as a music journalist, at the end of the 1980s, it was generally assumed that we were living through the lamest music era the world would ever see. But those were also the years when hip-hop exploded, beatbox disco soared, indie ro...
I should just put it bluntly, because we're all sort of friends here now - it's exceedingly likely that my greatest success is behind me. Oh, so Jesus, what a thought! You know that's the kind of thought that could lead a person to start drinking gin...
After my second, I started working with a nutritionist who specializes in post-baby weight loss. It's called Simply Beautiful Mom. I'm in restaurants all the time because of work, and she actually will look at menus online before I go and she says, '...
When I was younger I didn't really know what a director did: I knew I loved movies and I figured the actors made it up! And then when you get to 12 years old you start thinking, What does a director do? It was really an organic beginning: this looks ...
Viru Sahastrabudhhe: [Angrily looks for Raju in the class] Raju Rastogi? Raju Rastogi: [a drunk Raju stands up from the last bench of class... and shouts] Yes, sir! Viru Sahastrabudhhe: How does an induction motor start? Raju Rastogi: [Raju looks aro...
Tom: That was actually my nickname in college. They called me "Perfectly Adequate" Hanson. [Starts to take a drink of wine] Summer: They used to call me "Anal Girl". [Tom nearly gags on his drink from that and looks at her like "What?"] Summer: I was...
[Taken off the crew for a viral infection] Ken Mattingly: Well, I... damn. Medical guys. I had a feeling when they started doing all the blood tests that I... I mean I know it's their asses if I get sick up there but I mean JESUS!
Charlie Kaufman: To begin... To begin... How to start? I'm hungry. I should get coffee. Coffee would help me think. Maybe I should write something first, then reward myself with coffee. Coffee and a muffin. Okay, so I need to establish the themes. Ma...
Charlie Kaufman: The script I'm starting, it's about flowers. Nobody's ever done a movie about flowers before. So, so there are no guidelines... Donald Kaufman: What about "Flowers for Algernon"? Charlie Kaufman: Well, that's not about flowers. And i...
Lola Quincey: [Lola has just extracted the lead role in Briony's play - Arabella - from its obviously reluctant author] I suppose we should start by reading it. Briony Tallis, aged 13: [sharply] If you're going to be Arabella, then I'll be the direct...
[after they have restrained the Dormouse] Mad Hatter: Ah thank goodness! Those are the things that upset me! March Hare: See all the trouble you started? Alice: But I didn't think... March Hare: Ah, that's just it. If you don't think, then you should...
