If I can tell you the story from beginning to end in five minutes, I'm ready to start writing.

I do small cameos here and there but nothing that requires more than a paragraph of talking, because I'm just an amateur. The movie is a whole different reality.

The kind of event on a conveyor belt that causes a fire occurs in a variety of industrial environments, not uniquely in coal environments.

I'd love to be a saxophonist. I don't know why, but I pretend I'm the saxophonist when I listen to music. I have about as much chance playing the sax as I do learning how to fly.

I started thinking about my relationship with my students; I'm this guy who comes in from book - and movie - land and descends on angel wings into their classroom.

You can't take a character anywhere they don't expect the character to go. But within those confines is where creativity lies

The bigger the issue, the smaller you write. Remember that. You don't write about the horrors of war. No. You write about a kid's burnt socks lying on the road. You pick the smallest manageable part of the big thing, and you work off the resonance.