I was just learning to play guitar when Tracy Chapman came out. She wrote these songs she played them by herself and I so admired her for that.

For 'So Cold the River ' I'm actually working on adapting the book with Scott Silver who was just nominated for an Oscar for 'The Fighter ' and who also wrote '8 Mile ' which I think is a terrific screenplay. The chance to work with Scott is a tremendous pleasure and I'm learning a lot.

You made a lot of mistakes and you wrote a lot of crap. But it was all part of the learning process.

I can look back at stuff I wrote in my early days and squirm at some of the mistakes I made. But we're all learning every day we never stop. I just hope people keep on liking what I do. That gives me such a kick.

Although Bill Finger literally typed the scripts in the early days he wrote the scripts from ideas that we mutually collaborated on. Many of the unique concepts and story twists also came from my own fertile imagination.

In the beginning we had a great deal of freedom and Jerry wrote completely out of his imagination - very very freely. We even had no editorial supervision to speak of because they were in such a rush to get the thing in before deadline. But later on we were restricted.

Then there was Clark Ashton Smith who wrote for Weird Tales and who had a wild imagination. He wasn't a very talented writer but his imagination was wonderful.

Someone once said that history has more imagination than all the scenario writers in the Pentagon and we have a lot of scenario writers here. No one ever wrote a scenario for commercial airliners crashing into the World Trade Center.

I write from my imagination not from what I've read in books or seen on TV or to make money. I wrote from an idea I was passionate about.

You promised to take care of me and not to turn your back on me. How is it possible that you never wrote to me even once and you never came back to see me? Do you think that it is fun for me to spend months even years without any news without any hope!

'Peace Train' is a song I wrote the message of which continues to breeze thunderously through the hearts of millions. There is a powerful need for people to feel that gust of hope rise up again.

Part of what I loved - and love - about being around older people is the tangible sense of history they embody. I'm interested in military history for instance because both my grandfathers fought in World War II. I'm interested in writing because one of those grandfathers wrote books.

The past actually happened but history is only what someone wrote down.

That's why I wrote this book: to show how these people can imbue us with hope. I read somewhere that when a person takes part in community action his health improves. Something happens to him or to her biologically. It's like a tonic.

What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote.

I wrote a novel for my degree and I'm very happy I didn't submit that to a publisher. I sympathize with my professors who had to read it.

They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.

Our founders got it right when they wrote in the Declaration of Independence that our rights come from nature and nature's God not from government.

John wrote with a very deep love for the human race and a concern for its future.

When I was a little kid I wrote this play about all these characters living in a haunted house. There was a witch who lived there and a mummy. When they were all hassling him this guy who bought the house - I can't believe I remember this - he said to them 'Who's paying the mortgage on this haunted house?' I thought that was really funny.

End-of-the-world stories tend to ring true. I've always been drawn to them but as I wrote my own I found surprising pleasure in creating a world that is so radically changed yet where there's so much meaning and value in every small and ordinary thing we have and take for granted: hot showers enough food friends routines.

When I wrote 'Fast Food My Way' in 2004 I hoped that my friends would prepare my recipes. Now more people cook from that book than any other I've written in the past 30 years.

I love 'Top Chef.' I think it rewrote the book on how food shows are presented on TV.

More than fantasy or even science fiction Ray Bradbury wrote horror and like so many great horror writers he was himself utterly without fear of anything. He wasn't afraid of looking uncool - he wasn't scared to openly love innocence or to be optimistic or to write sentimentally when he felt that way.