To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts.

What happens in a fantasy can be more involving than what happens in life, and thank goodness for that.

When I write, I fall into the zone many writers, painters, musicians, athletes, and craftsmen of all sorts seem to share: In doing something I enjoy and am expert at, deliberate thought falls aside and it is all just THERE. I think of the next word no more than the composer thinks of the next note.

I am, beneath everything else, a fan. I was fixed in this mode as a young boy and am awed by people who take the risks of performance.

Socrates told us, "the unexamined life is not worth living." I think he's calling for curiosity, more than knowledge. In every human society at all times and at all levels, the curious are at the leading edge.

At the end of the day, some authors will endure and most, including some very good ones, will not. Why do I think reading is important? It is such an effective medium between mind and mind. We think largely in words. A medium made only of words doesn't impose the barrier of any other medium. It is naked and unprotected communication. That's how you get pregnant. May you always be so.

A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it.