I always resent anybody interfering with anybody else trying to do his job. Everybody has his own job to do. If he's good, he'll do well, but if he's mediocre, he's not going to do as well as he should.

A character to me can't be contrived. I don't like to contrive characters. They have to have an element of truth.

I never had stock endings. I didn't believe in stock endings. To make the [reader] happy was not my objective, but to make the [reader] say, "Yeah, that's what would happen" - that was my objective.

Of course, mothers were very conventional, everything was very conventional. You had to have approval.

I hated to fight all the time just to enjoy my day. Fighting wasn't the kind of thing that I enjoyed, but I grew to enjoy it because I did it so long.

I didn't have an affinity for horror. But I knew that commercially it was viable.

In the Army when we had judo classes, out of the class of 27 just me and another guy graduated. I grew to enjoy it because I knew I could do it well. I tried to do everything well.