It's all sex for me. Politics is sex. Race is sex. It's the novel. It's the novel!

I got a woman I'm loyal to above all things, above my career. She's profound to me. I'm quiet. I live in Kansas City. I work.

She quoted a dead playwright and called me a bullet with nothing but a future. She understood my lack of self-pity. She knew why I despised everything that might restrict my forward momentum. She knew that bullets have no conscience. They speed past things and miss their marks as often as they hit them.

All I want to do is make serious movies that explore social issues and turn a profit, and slip the schnitzel to Jane DePugh.

When I was a kid, Eisenhower had been President forever, and all of a sudden, everything in the world was all about Jack Kennedy. I was 12, interested in politics; my father was from Massachusetts, had an accent like Kennedy.

I kept saying, "Stop me now. It's going to my head." I got some photos. Really, I did! It's not my noblest sexual self in these moments, but I want to have fun. I want to undress. I get off my leash to go out and perform. Some other writers are just discomforted by the way I behave in public. Because they're loath to perform.

Joe Wambaugh's a friend. I know him only casually, but I like him a lot. I think he likes my books.