It was a wealthy family, and they heard me talk about movies, and they told me I should go into movies. That's the benefit of hanging out with rich people; they have no sense of what is or isn't possible.
There's a lot of things that go on when you're on tour that cannot be controlled. I'm not even talking about myself, but of course there's sexual activity and drugs, fighting and language; it is certainly not a place to raise a family.
My ideal day would be to get a good work out in, listen to music, talk to my family and friends on the phone, read and go to a good movie.
You don't know what the Chinese expect in the way of beauty. The presentation is just a farce. You come into a room filled with 50 people and they don't talk to you. There's very little interaction.
Never once does 'Snow White' herself look in the mirror so she isn't aware of her beauty or what apparently that does to people. It's really just the queen and the prince that talk about it.
Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the color in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person, maintain your health, your beauty and your animal spirits.
Not to sound corny, but intelligence is big. Everything fades, and everything can be modified. But intelligence is something you can't fake. I'm not even talking about whether you can read a thesaurus backwards. But there is a beauty in common sense.
When I'm at home, I don't discuss business. I don't talk business. I don't answer the phone. It's just me, my wife, my children, my dogs. That's my world.
In my column series 'The Main Thing', I often talk about how Internet technology can improve the way people communicate - both within a business and between a business and its customers and partners.
I heard about the movie business before I even knew what it was. So I surround myself now with people who are like, 'Can we not talk about movies for an hour?'
I have several writer friends, but I don't involve them in my work process. I'm more likely to talk about the business of publishing with them.
Fortunately we've been shooting in North Carolina which means we're not in LA where you can hear people talking about you and you know so much about what's going on in the business.
I do most of my business on that dirty Internet that you were just talking about, where I find there is a lot of freedom to report exactly what I want.
Peace comes when you talk to the guy you most hate. And that's where the courage of a leader comes, because when you sit down with your enemy, you as a leader must already have very considerable confidence from your own constituency.
When finally I mustered the courage to tell a novelist friend that I was talking to editors about a biography, her reply was, 'Oh, that's okay. That's not a real book.'
I love sitting down and talking to people. CNBC gave me a chance to do it in a way that I liked. They gave me a chance to also develop the skills to learn from my mistakes.
I'm obsessed with politics, and I talk about it any chance I can get. I have strong opinions about how the world should be run.
I don't write on topics that require a lot of urgency. But in 'Stiff,' I wanted to change people's hearts about organ donation. Whenever I get a chance, I try to talk about that.
I'm really happy to have the chance to talk about the editing process. It's something that I think doesn't get the weight it deserves, especially with the rise of self-publishing.
But it's cool working with female directors because I'm a girl, so you do relate to them more. You can talk to them about other stuff like clothes and all that.
When I went to shows with my friends, it was all about the experience with my friends. If I met the band, it was cool. But it was more about talking about the memories of the show with my friends.
