I think it's always good for the author to stay a good cattle prod's distance from the actual moviemaking.
There is no writer's block in a newsroom. There's only unemployment block.
When I'm working on a novel of my own, I try to read mostly nonfiction, although sometimes I break down and peek at something else.
From my experience, politicians are much more uncomfortable being made fun of than they are being preached at and screeched at - you know, and the soapbox routine. They're much more uneasy knowing they're a target of ridicule.
All novels are about crime. You'd be hard pressed to find any novel that does not have an element of crime. I don't see myself as a crime novelist, but there are crimes in my books. That's the nature of storytelling, if you want to reflect the real world.
When I'm deciding to read a book, I never open to the first chapter, because that's been revised and worked over 88 times. I'll just turn to the middle of the book, to the middle of a chapter, and just read a random page and I'll know right away whether this is the real deal or not.
There's so much hate that we direct externally that we forget we have our own psychos. But that's the role of the satirist - you have to examine your own country and say, 'look!'
My humour has always come from anger, but I have to make sure I don't just get angry and jump on a soapbox.
Disney's something to be a little alarmed about. It's not just a little theme park anymore. It's now an ethic and outlook and strategy that goes way beyond central Florida.
I've always enjoyed making people laugh. But in order for me to be funny, I have to get ticked off about something.
Here's my rule: You always want to pay cash for your own books, because if they look at the name on the credit card and then they look at the name on the book jacket, then there's this look of such profound sympathy for you that you had to resort to this. It really is withering.
