I can't say I'm not grateful to have journalists writing about me as a genius. But I know it's not true. I'm not confused. I understand that success comes through a lot of failure and a lot of very embarrassing failure. People want to create the next Facebook but they are too afraid to create the next Facemash.

Ideology politics and journalism which luxuriate in failure are impotent in the face of hope and joy.

Well my background is journalism. I don't have any creative-writing experience except for one class I took as a sophomore in college.

I think newspapers shouldn't try to compete directly with the Web and should do what they can do better which may be long-form journalism and using photos and art and making connections with large-form graphics and really enhancing the tactile experience of paper.

Environmental concern is now firmly embedded in public life: in education medicine and law in journalism literature and art.

Screenplays I didn't really care about journalism travel books getting my writer friends to write about their dreams or something. I just determined to write the books I had to write.

I published in 1978 a report on dreams in the Journal of Clinical Psychology. It was the first study of its kind to demonstrate that it is possible for people to make constructive use of their dreams to improve their lives.

After the writer's death reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.

From time to time I'll look back through the personal journals I've scribbled in throughout my life the keepers of my raw thoughts and emotions. The words poured forth after my dad died when I went through a divorce and after I was diagnosed with breast cancer. There are so many what-ifs scribbled on those pages.

In the 'Garnethill' trilogy people always forget that Maureen O'Donnell's dad was a journalist and she did art history at uni and her brother did law but no-one ever thinks they're middle-class - they're just working class because they speak with accents.

I knew I was going to be a journalist when I was eight years old and I saw the printing presses rolling at the Sydney newspaper where my dad worked as a proofreader.

I have to remind my dad 'Journalists - no matter how many cigars they smoke with you - are not your friends so don't talk to them.'

I have four shelves covered with journals that I've written. Dad and I are writing songs together. I've probably written 100 songs.

The courage in journalism is sticking up for the unpopular not the popular.

I started to send my work to journals when I was 26 which was just a question of when I got the courage up. They were mostly journals I had been reading for the previous six or seven years.

A lot of journalists like to suck up to celebrities and then as soon as they're a safe distance away at their computers they take shots. But that's the way society has become especially in pop culture.

Musicians and journalists are the canaries in the coalmine but eventually as computers get more and more powerful it will kill off all middle-class professions.

To conclude: good journalism is one of the models of good conversation and communication in the wider social context.

I still believe that if your aim is to change the world journalism is a more immediate short-term weapon.

A couple of months ago I was down in Florida for the Food and Wine Festival. And this journalist grabbed me and said 'How does it feel to be a TV guy? You're no longer in the restaurant business.' And I laughed. I asked him 'How long do you think it takes me to do a season?' He said 'Well 200 days.' And I was like '200 days? Try 20!'

I became a larger than life figure for one reason only. When you're quoted in the 'Wall Street Journal ' the 'New York Times ' constantly as the expert in the business people assume you're a lot bigger than you are. And then I had to run like hell to catch up with my own image.

The best discussion of trouble in boardroom and business office is found in newspapers' own financial pages and speeches by journalists in management jobs.

There is a growing literature about the multitude of journalism's problems but most of it is concerned with the editorial side of the business possibly because most people competent to write about journalism are not comfortable writing about finance.

Except for politics no business is scrutinized more exhaustively than journalism.