I was a huge fantasy geek growing up. I was the dungeon master in my D&D game.

And I didn't grow up wanting to be a director. I grew up wanting to be a writer, so for me, that was always the goal - to be a novelist, not a screenwriter. And I think, again, if I didn't have the novels, maybe I'd be much more frustrated by not having directed yet.

‎I was cursed with the pessimism of both the Russians and the Jews two of the gloomiest tribes in the world. Still if there wasn't greatness in me maybe I had the talent to recognize it in others even in the most irritating others.

Every adaptation requires that the screenwriter make difficult choices - and in particular, difficult cuts.

I think, in a weird way, the reason I was drawn to screenwriting and the reason I really love doing it is because I love writing dialogue.

With the movies, people are not going to wait around. The deadline is a deadline. In publishing it's more a polite suggestion.

This wasn't the way I had imagined my adventures, but reality ignored my wishes from the get-go, giving me a body best suited for stacking books in the library, injecting so much fear into my veins that I could only cower in the stairwell when the violence came. Maybe someday my arms and legs would thicken with muscle and the fear would drain away like dirty bathwater. I wish I believed these things would happen, but I didn't.