There is a set of religious or rather moral writings which teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness and vice to misery in this world. A very wholesome and comfortable doctrine and to which we have but one objection namely that it is not true.

A great value of antiquity lies in the fact that its writings are the only ones that modern men still read with exactness.

I teach one semester a year and this year I'm just teaching one course during that semester a writing workshop for older students in their late 20s and early 30s people in our graduate program who are already working on a manuscript and trying to bring it to completion.

I think young writers should get other degrees first social sciences arts degrees or even business degrees. What you learn is research skills a necessity because a lot of writing is about trying to find information.

I love and always have loved policy issues and trying to have an impact on the issues that are out there. I cherish my years in government. I have loved my participation at CNN at Current writing teaching. Where I will go next I will have to sort out.

Being in a rock band is about touring. It's about writing songs and it's about making records but it's also about taking a wonderful smile onto that stage and making the people feel good about themselves.

I was in enough to get along with people. I was never socially inarticulate. Not a loner. And that saved my life saved my sanity. That and the writing. But to this day I distrust anybody who thought school was a good time. Anybody.

Good writing is like a windowpane.

God flourished my ministry and my career of creative thinking communicating and writing back 50 years.

Somebody informed me recently that the key to every art from writing to gardening to sculpture is creativity. I beg to differ.

The Arab World is writing a new future the pen is in our own hands.

In 1998 Artnet was the site that convinced me that if my writing didn't exist online it didn't exist at all. It showed me criticism's future.

What's funny about that is when I was writing Twilight just for myself and not thinking of it as a book I was not thinking about publishing and yet at the same time I was casting it in my head. Because when I read books I see them very visually.

I love Mikhail Bulgakov. He is very original and takes the story to unexpected places. I didn't realise political writing could be so funny.

I remember listening to the radio as a kid and finding that the songs always made me feel more peaceful. Funny but the more hurtin' the music was the better it made me feel. I think of that now when I write my songs. I may not be feelin' the blues myself but I'm writing them for other people who have a hard life.

Plus I love comic writing. Nothing satisfies me more than finding a funny way to phrase something.

People forget how outcast 'They Might Be Giants' can be. They have a reputation for writing really deft funny clever melodies and they also make a lot of music for kids which is terrific but when you see them in concert they can rock the house.

I started writing when I was 9 years old. I was like this weird kid who would just stay in my room typing little funny magazines and drawing comic strips.

You know how it is with writing. You just write what you want to write. There's no way to predict what is good or bad. You just do what you think is funny and either it works or you're finished. It's impossible to predict anything.

I love Charlie Billy Burke's character. Writing for him is so spectacular he's so funny and wry and every scene he's in he just takes. There's a scene in 'Eclipse' where Bella tells him she's a virgin and it's the funniest most awkward scene I've ever seen on film.

We've got a bunch of new writers now who tell me they grew up watching The Simpsons. It's bizarre and they're writing some very funny stuff.

So that's why one of my rules of parody writing is that it's gotta be funny regardless of whether you know the source material. It has to work on its own merit.

No writing musicals is the hardest thing in the world. And it was really funny because I remember when the South Park movie came out there were some critics that said 'Well it's obvious that in order to get it to be 90 minutes they filled some time with music.'

I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done.