Oh, I'm not a true genius. I'm a near genius. I would say I'm a short genius. I'd rather be tall and normal than a short genius.

Being brave is being scared and worried and still doing it [what you do]. Because if you're just a wacko, a mashugana, a crazy guy, then you're not brave, your nuts!

The brilliance of Max Brooks is that he always quotes authorities at the back of his books that never existed. Like a Russian professor he made up that validates a story or character.

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.

A cinema villain essentially needs a moustache so he can twiddle with it gleefully as he cooks up his next nasty plan.

Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.

Well, just being stupid and politically incorrect doesn't work. You can be politically incorrect if you're smart.