I think that Anderson Cooper does a great job of staying with stories and pushing them. New Orleans he really... He was there and he pushed it past the point where his producers were saying, "Listen, you've got to stop because people are tuning out now. You know, we're on to another disaster." You know, what do you worry about, Haiti, Chile, Turkey? What? You know where do you put your attention and your focus? So for one person to really be able to cover all that ground would be tough.

My father, Norman Mailer, expected a lot from us and he really pushed us and you know one of his favorite lines was, "If you think I'm being hard on you, wait until life hits you because life is a hell of a lot tougher than I am." And I took everything he said to heart. He taught me how to write, which was scary and intimidating and hard, but ultimately one of the biggest gifts I could have ever asked for.

Work ethic is one of the biggest things my father taught me. That man worked like every day, every day, 9 to 5, well 9 to 9 in his case, but he would treat it as if it was a 9 to 5 job. He would clock in. He would put in his hours. That is how you can write those you know incredibly long books that unfortunately there is not much market for anymore, but that is also how you can explore an idea on a deeper level than we get in our media surface these days. It's tough.

We've been duped into believing we don't have 25 minutes to have something change our life. We don't have 2. You know, we're tweeting. We're running around. We're 15 words or less.

I had a lot of fun with those guys from the Wall Street. The laughter is unlike most settings you'll find. The level of intensity, the adrenaline, the stakes are incredible. I mean it is addictive. I can understand why people end up spending 23 or 24 hours a day hitting it.

I would say the only one person I know of who kind of combines the elements that my father brought to the table in terms of affecting the public discourse would be Oliver Stone. His combination of academic brilliance and real life experience and just understanding people I think is what makes him such a great storyteller, but also he cares. He is interested. He meets somebody and he listens to them. He has some questions. He wants to know what they're about. And as a result I think his worldview is much more complex and whole and most of the other.

If you're going to go into the movie business it is so full of heartbreak and you get so close and it doesn't happen and then once in a while it works out and it is the fantasy, like it is that dream. So riding the highs and lows of it you got to have an iron constitution and you got to be able to do what David Dinkins actually one said - "Well you know some days are good, some days are bad, but anytime there is a bad day I know the next day is going to be good and vice versa, so you just can't put too much stock in that moment."