The best under-the-radar rivalry is Dodgers-Giants. I had no idea how deep that one was until I moved to California... that one goes waaaaaaaaay back, and both sides absolutely detest each other. Fights in the stands, fights in the parking lot, the w...
When I did the film 'Hear My Voice' a few years ago, I disappeared fully up my own backside for a while. Because I thought my career was taking off, I became a bit of an egomaniac and a pain in the neck. I thought I was God's gift to mankind and the ...
I'd always admired writers. I'd always loved words on a page. Somehow, words seemed to bypass image and get straight to the heart of things. Somehow, words seemed big enough to contain pain, and sentences could pull broken bits together.
After one and a half cocktails, finding the appropriate response is a bit of a challenge. I finally say, 'Thank you for inviting me,' and leave the less desirable 'Want to play strip poker?' in the unscrupulous part of my brain where it belongs.
An enlightened trust in the sovereignty of human reason can be every bit as magical as the exploits of Merlin, and a faith in our capacity for limitless self-improvement just as much a wide-eyed superstition as a faith in leprechauns.
For myself, the only way I know how to make a book is to construct it like a collage: a bit of dialogue here, a scrap of narrative, an isolated description of a common object, an elaborate running metaphor which threads between the sequences and hold...
The Toothbrush mustache was first introduced in Germany by Americans, who turned up with it at the end of the 19th century the way Americans would turn up with ducktails in the 1950s. It was a bit of modern efficiency, an answer to the ornate mustach...
Production was what I always wanted to do, even when I was skating. I'm a bit of a sponge. When I was going around competing I was always asking, 'What does that light do?' If you want to be successful, you have to understand what people are doing ar...
I write so others might contemplate things that are out of the ordinary. I write to make people feel—to cause laughter and tears and anger at injustice. I write so the world will imagine and wonder at crazy, incredible truths. I write to have a tin...
I would say that maybe directors who act as well are easier with actors. I'm not saying that all directors have this, but sometimes you'll come across a director who sort of looks at an actor a bit like a kind of untrained horse that's been let out o...
When you turn from one room to the next, when your animal senses no longer perceive the sounds of the dishwasher, the ticking clock, the smell of a chicken roasting - the kitchen and all its seemingly discrete bits dissolve into nothingness - or into...
It took a bit of popcorn and a library snack bar to make me realize that being a librarian was about more than just giving people information. It was about serving a community. And if the community is hungry for more than just knowledge, then maybe i...
I like to imagine that library school was started because of some sort of silly bar bet where a guy got really plastered and told his buddy that he could convince people that librarians needed to be trained in the art of librarianship. Sadly, this is...
Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.
Once I began doing stand-up, I didn't get a kick out of the applause or being the centre of attention - but I did get a kick out of the jigsaw puzzle aspect of it, searching for the right bit, adding another few pieces each night until the bigger pic...
What makes me a proper man! Blogging out a detail information about myself? Or just tweeting some real shit out from my mind. Its bit crazy what makes me a perfect but I do know what really makes me good.
Probably the biggest temptation that young writers face is to be entertaining, to show your bag of tricks and do a bit of tap dancing. I read a lot of things, and I keep seeing this brocade of voice where someone is trying to be too pally with you or...
I was on 'The O.C.' and had a small part, which wasn't very challenging. I was a bit bored, so I started shadowing directors and they finally gave me a shot. From there, it led to directing other television shows. I am trying to direct a feature film...
The distinctions of what makes a book one genre or another can sometimes be a bit muddy, but generally it's a matter of projecting who the audience will be, which is a judgment that's based on the subject matter. 'Mainstream' is the cleanest label fo...
New York cops are very specific in terms of the way they talk and the way they handle themselves. All these cliches that, as an Englishman, I thought were from a bygone era or were a bit of poetic license with cop shows - the more you hang out with t...
If there are actors that are brilliant, people often wonder whether it's intimidating working alongside them, but it really isn't. It just makes you up your game and want to be better. Rather than cowering in their shadows, it's very encouraging to s...
