Rorschach: How's your friend Hollis Mason? Dan Dreiberg: What's Hollis got to do with any of this? Rorschach: He wrote that book. Said some things about the Comedian in it. Dan Dreiberg: I don't like what you're implying. I like being followed even l...
My interest in society - at times so pronounced that the word 'snob' comes a little to mind - derives from the fact that I like an immense number of things which society, money, and position bring in their train: painting, tapestries, rare books, sma...
There's book smart, there is street smart, there's relationship smart, there's too many different kinds of smarts to know all of them. Everybody doesn't know every kind of smart. There's money smart, there's movie smart, there's computer smart. There...
I would have to say the novel 'War and Peace' influenced me more than any other book. This greatest of novels demonstrated to me the enormous power of literature and fired me up with a desire to become a writer, to participate in what I considered th...
My first draft is always way too long; my books start out with delusions of 'War and Peace' - and must be gently disabused. My editor is brilliant at taking me to the point where I do all the necessary cutting on my own. I like to say she's a midwife...
Don't ever let the other stuff get in the way of your inherent skills as a kick-butt storyteller. Move the reader, make them happy and sad and excited and scared. Make them stare into space after they've put the book down, thinking about the tale tha...
Technology is supposed to make our lives easier, allowing us to do things more quickly and efficiently. But too often it seems to make things harder, leaving us with fifty-button remote controls, digital cameras with hundreds of mysterious features a...
It's just that... working on 'Green Lantern,' I saw how difficult it is to make that concept palatable, and how confused it all can be when you don't really know exactly where you're going with it or you don't really know how to access that world pro...
If I were doing a real rock show, slapping the phone book in time to the music, grooving with the songs, then it would matter to know how I felt about what I was playing. You can't fake it in that situation. But I'm just counting them down as they ap...
The way we work at Pixar is we write the script, but then we quickly move on into story reel, which is basically like a comic-book version of the film. And then we do our own dialogue and music and sound effects, all in an effort to be able to basica...
No matter how many times people say it - 'Oh, I'm just writing this for myself' 'Oh, I'm just doing this for myself' - nobody's doing it for themselves! You're doing it for an audience. So whether I'm performing or writing a book or playing music, it...
At the very end of a book I can manage to work for longer stretches, but mostly, making stuff up for three hours, that's enough. I can't do any more. At the end of the day I might tinker with my morning's work and maybe write some again. But I think ...
I read usually in the morning, in my kitchen at breakfast - a short reading time, usually poetry. I read in bed every night. I usually get in bed pretty early with a book, and I read until I can't prop my eyes open anymore - sometimes rather late.
I want to wake up one morning and know how to write page one, or page 10, or page 250. But I never seem to know how to do it. Every book is different and takes a different structure, style, process, etc. And relearning how to write is where the insan...
My days are filled with writing, reading, and being a mom. Some days, I get to visit schools around the country and talk about what it's like to be a writer. I often feel like I'm pretending, because it's still hard for me to believe it when I see so...
We've been shooting the last two weeks with a lot of vampires. I don't want to give away too much, but if you've read the books, it's the standoff with lots of vampires in play. There's like 70 people going through the works at once. It's a little ma...
David Shayne: I studied playrighting with every teacher, I read every book... Cheech: Let me tell you somethin' about teachers. I hate teachers. Those blue-haired bitches used to whack us with rulers. Forget teachers.
[on Wex's drawing] Busch: Looks good. Wex: It's improving. Busch: But if I may make a suggestion... more of an observation. Wex: Go ahead. Busch: It's a children's book. They aren't supposed to scare the living shit out of the children.
Yahya related to me from Malik that he heard that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "I have left two things with you. As long as you hold fast to them, you will not go astray. They are the Book of Allah and the Su...
One thing I don't want to feel is marketplace pressure, so I'm really glad I enjoy teaching because I can rely on that for a salary. I think it would be such a different game if I had to write a book that has to sell well.
The wonderful thing about books--and the thing that made them such a refuge for the islanders during the Occupation--is that they take us out of our time and place and understanding, and transport us not just into the world of the story, but into the...
