I read a whole bunch of bits and pieces over the years, obviously from the fan magazines and the rest of the stuff, and I just wanted to give a little more insight into what's happening in my personal life.
It's interesting when you read the life of Christ how much of his time he spent healing the sick. There must have been a reason for that - he was modelling for us what it is we are intended to do by following his path.
Kids who are poor often have families that have not really been kept informed about... how important it is to read to your child, to reduce stresses in their life, to use positive incentives and words.
I read, I gossip, I do crosswords. I think chatting with friends is relaxing. I've picked them up all through my life - if you live long enough, you end up with quite a large circle.
You can go to the pictures or read a book, but football constantly comes back into your mind. It's not a job, it's a life. It takes up your time, thoughts and energy and it can damage relationships with those around you.
I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.
The writers who have the deepest influence on one are those one reads in ones more impressionable, early life, and often it is the more youthful works of those writers that leave the deepest imprint.
There's the typical books, Moby Dick and, I guess in my adult life I began to read biographies more than fiction. I started to want to relate to other people's lives, things that had really happened.
When you're a little kid, you are small, your life is small - and you're terrifically aware of that. But when you read, you can ride Arabian horses across the desert, you can be a dogsledder.
I think I remember from the offset I said, 'I've visited this territory. This isn't for me.' And then I read the script and I said, 'You know, this is completely something different. This is a whole new life.'
The first thing I do when I read a part is see if I can identify emotionally with a character. If I make that connection, everything else is just working on knowing their life circumstances and manifesting those through practice and research.
I'd like for the young people, and older ones, too, who don't count themselves as readers, to know the joy of reading and what it does to enrich your life in so many ways.
Sometimes I read a biography of some tempestuous artist and find myself longing for fireworks! booze! bloody fights!; I do think that life must be so much more thrilling when you're actively miserable.
'Et Tu, Babe' was born out of my absolute certainty that a writer's life was solitary and insular, and I was happy with that. I love reading and writing; it's my whole life.
Also, I had read a book called She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders, written by a professor who had gone through transgender surgery, but it took this person well into his thirties to come to terms with the absolute necessity of having to do it.
Books, I don't know what you see in them. I can understand a person reading them, but I can't for the life of me see why people have to write them.
My life has been a dream. If someone had to write a story about it, it would seem a little unreal. It's the kind of story I would read and say, 'Nah, that's not possible.'
When I read Deborah Brenner's book 'Women of the Vine' about women wine makers, I was impressed that many of the women she had interviewed had come to wine making later in life as a second career.
On reading the first part of Anthony Powell's four-part masterpiece, 'A Dance to the Music of Time,' I was struck by one of the characters - an irritating peripheral character- who keeps showing up in the main protagonist's life.
I love 'Safe Men.' Now it's getting all this culty kind of - it just came out on DVD. That was awesome. I read that script, I never laughed so hard in my life.
I read and write for most of the day, but I do let myself be interrupted by real life. I enjoy going out with friends and try not to take myself too seriously.
