I tend to foster drama via bleakness. If I want the reader to feel sympathy for a character, I cleave the character in half, on his birthday. And then it starts raining. And he's made of sugar.
The first comic book I ever read was an issue of 'Legion of Super-Heroes' where the earth was surrounded by all of these chains. I remember the cover; I got it at a birthday party.
I used to be good with kids, but as I get older, I'm grumpy and terrible with them. As for doing a gig at a 6-year old's birthday party, you couldn't pay me enough.
Lucy took care of me on the set, and made sure that none of the crew cussed around me. She also had birthday parties for me and made sure that they were well attended.
I got my first tennis racket on my seventh birthday. And because we had a tennis court in our backyard, I played every day. By ten I was playing competitively.
I bet the very first piñata was surprised. “Oh, hey a party! Cool! What’s the occa— HEY, WHAT THE HELL, KID?
Our pain hides beneath these fluttering, random thoughts that run through our heads in an endless loop. But there's so much freedom in getting to know what's under there, the bedrock.
The poor have to labour in the face of the majestic equality of the law, which forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
I think 'I Spy,' still when you look at it, speaks volumes in terms of propaganda for equality. It's just magnificent.
Here are the values that I stand for: honesty, equality, kindness, compassion, treating people the way you want to be treated and helping those in need. To me, those are traditional values.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood.
I happen to agree with many of the liberal emphasis on compassion, justice and equality. I just disagree that it's the government's role to provide everything.
To cement a new friendship, especially between foreigners or persons of a different social world, a spark with which both were secretly charged must fly from person to person, and cut across the accidents of place and time.
I was a very self-righteous 15-25 year old. Anyway, I wake up every morning and thank God I'm not a kid anymore.
With land-roaming animals, I've just read so much about the sophistication of their emotional lives and their intelligence and the way they process information that betrays a greater intelligence.
It would help if human experts agreed on the meaning of such basic terms as intelligence, consciousness, or awareness. They don't. It's hard to build something that's incompletely defined.
I respect the audience's intelligence a lot, and that's why I don't try to go for the lowest common denominator.
I can't see what's wrong about assuming intelligence in your audience and what's bad news about being rewarded for assuming that.
Standing around the grill is fine, but I like to have my friends come in and out of the house. Movement makes the party more exciting.
I don't think that Slaughterhouse-Five was successful movie material. In fact, Vonnegut's books mostly I don't feel are movie material.
We have this habit of romanticizing the lives of writers. I remember when I was a kid, I was like, 'I want to be Kurt Vonnegut.'
