Being short never bothered me for three seconds. The rest of the time I wanted to commit suicide.

My mother is very short - four-eleven. She could walk under tables and never hit her head.

I've always loved songwriting, and I vowed to be a songwriter like Cole Porter when I was only 9 years old.

When I'm writing a script, I don't worry about plot as much as I do about people. I get to know the main characters - what they need, what they want, what they should do. That's what gets the story going. You can't just have action, you've got to find out what the characters want. And then they must grow, they must go somewhere.

When I was a little kid, if somebody said they were thirty-five, I'd say "Oooh, they're going to die soon". But as I get older it doesn't mean a thing. You mustn't ever give in. Never give in to thinking you're old, because you're never old. Your mind, and I tell you this and listen to me carefully, your mind is never, ever old, it's eternally young.

That's it baby, if you've got it, flaunt it.

There's an army story in me, and I think there's a WWII Brooks film somewhere.