Writing my first book, I think in hindsight I went into it saying, 'It's gonna sell.' I was earning enough to scrape by sometime around a book or two before 'Tell No One.' I moved up from $50,000 to $75,000, then $150,000 for each book. I had never thought I would be doing anything else. I had enough encouragement.
Our mom was a super strident, capable, and strong individual. I think because she was a military wife in the Marine Corps, she had to push back the things that she believed, and she had to really scrape and fight to have her space.
I think the worst thing that could have happened to me would have been having a hit at 20. I don't know what that would have done to me. But instead, I had to scrape a living for years. And my first show, which opened in 1969, lost over £45,000, an absolute fortune then.
I haven't been approached to do a 'Doctor Who' movie. I think they would be scraping the bottom of the barrel if they asked me to do it.
I don't look at life as a battle or as a fight. I don't think I'm scrappy. I'm accepting.
I have a folder of scraps and pieces of paper with stuff, ideas for songs from the last 25 years; just little things, maybe early songs that I finished, but didn't think they were good enough.
I think we're just scratching the surface. One of the most exciting aspects of 23andMe is that we're enabling you to watch a revolution unfold live during your lifetime, and I think that the decoding of the genome, in my opinion, is the most fascinating discovery of our lifetime, and you get to be part of it.
The whole industry is changing because so many people watch things on DVR, and they watch things on other platforms, and I think everybody is kind of scratching their heads about how this is going to play out.
In global warming, I think everyone is scratching their heads - are there technological things that can be brought to bear that can make a difference?
I think every director's different. Every director's got his own style. I mean, when I directed, I basically just screamed for eight hours a day, twelve hours a day.
When 'Jewel' was screened, old friends from school and university got back in touch. More than one of them told me that their partners hated Merrick so much they could not think of having me in the house. This kind of audience identification does not happen in any other medium.
I think we are at the very beginning of high changes, not only in terms of digital film, but in the way the movies will be screened, whether they'll be screened on phones, on computers - on everything.
I would love to write a screenplay for 'Badlands' one day. I don't think I could ever have the patience to do it; I don't even have the patience to write songs. I write some of the shortest songs ever because I don't have the patience.
And I didn't grow up wanting to be a director. I grew up wanting to be a writer, so for me, that was always the goal - to be a novelist, not a screenwriter. And I think, again, if I didn't have the novels, maybe I'd be much more frustrated by not having directed yet.
I don't think I'm the best screenwriter in the world. It's just important to me to write my movies so I'm personally invested in them.
I think, in a weird way, the reason I was drawn to screenwriting and the reason I really love doing it is because I love writing dialogue.
I think if I've worked anything through with screenwriting it's that I'm not going to be able to work anything through.
I don't think screenwriting is therapeutic. It's actually really, really hard for me. It's not an enjoyable process.
As a rule, I think people in L.A. are interested in any writer who brings a different skill set and experiences. There's an attraction to novelty and to anyone whose writing isn't based in screenwriting. I had that novelty.
The more screenwriting you do, the more you become aware that particular scenes aren't going to end up in the movie because they're too expensive. That has perhaps changed the way I think about writing novels, actually, because now I write expensive scenes whenever I can.
