Joe Lieberman frightens me. Why should we, an Hollywood voter, donate money to a man who threatens our creative freedom, our freedom of expression.

I had read too many memoirs that were written after the writer or the director was past his or her prime.

Every time I flicked channels, there I was, talking. I was talking too much and writing too little. So Naomi and I went to Hawaii. The phone was cut off and we lost touch. This gave me the chance to have a good think about my life.

All has changed, thanks to Joe Eszterhas' life-threatening battle with throat cancer. He announced in "The New York Times" that he and Hollywood had blood on their hands and now Eszterhas is crusading to stop Hollywood's glamorization of smoking.

My father could have been deported because on his immigration application he said that he was a printer, obviously because he didn't want them to be checking his writings.

There are certainly a lot of sins to be taken on. To take on smoking and movies is a weighty enough thing, I think, and it's one I've experienced, and it's what's caused me to live in-with my voice maimed for the rest of my life.

I changed my diet completely. You know, I'm from Cleveland, so I've always loved sausage and red meat and all of that stuff, so now I find myself not eating any of that, no red meat, no sausage. It's basically a vegetarian diet with a little bit of fish. I drink quarts of carrot juice, quarts of cranberry juice, endless amounts of water and nothing else.