The main thing that gives me hope is the media. We have radio TV magazines and books so we have the possibility of learning from societies that are remote from us like Somalia. We turn on the TV and see what blew up in Iraq or we see conditions in Afghanistan.

I think the advent of the Internet gave us all a big boost because by the time the Internet became mainstream and you could get it in your home a lot of us were used to dealing in fan culture writing to magazines or anything at the back of comic books.

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.

In a funny way poems are suited to modern life. They're short they're intense. Nobody has time to read a 700-page book. People read magazines and a poem takes less time than an article.

And why do we who say we oppose tyranny and demand freedom of speech allow people to go to prison and be vilified and magazines to be closed down on the spot for suggesting another version of history.

As a freelance writer I'd be asked to become an expert for various magazines on any subject whether food or wine or history or the life span of veterinarians. I was completely unschooled in any of these things.

I definitely wanted to be an actor. I didn't want to be on TV I didn't want to be famous I didn't want to be anyone in particular I just wanted to do it. I see young people now who look at magazines or American Idol and their goal is to have that lifestyle - to have good handbags or go out with cute guys from shows or whatever. But I definitely wanted to be an actor.

There are people who appear in the magazines and I don't know who they are. I've never seen anything they've done and their careers are over already. They're famous for maybe 10 minutes. Real careers I think take a long time to unfold.

I'm on a strict gossip diet. No gossip websites no gossip magazines. Otherwise I find it paralyzing to exist.

If I took over the 'Glamour' offices for a day I would put Joe Pesci on the cover. I would say 'We've got to change all these magazines a little bit. We have to bring out a different version of what is like cool. You know what's winning. Joe Pesci Burt Reynolds.'

I wanted to escape Small Town U.S.A. To dismiss the boundaries to explore. My life experience came from watching movies TV and reading books and magazines. When your culture comes from watching TV everyday you're bombarded with images of things that seem cool places that seem interesting people who have jobs and careers and opportunities.

My definition of cool is finding your own definition of cool and not necessarily taking your lead from what other people tell you or from what you might read from magazines or see on TV.

We're always bombarded with images from magazines of what looks cool and sexy.

The first real thought that I had of something that I might do was to write for car magazines because I always had a car thing.

Beauty magazines make my girlfriend feel ugly.

I was always reading those beauty magazines and wanting to become this unattainable thing.

Smiles come naturally to me but I started thinking of them as an art form at my command. I studied all the time. I looked at magazines I'd practice in front of the mirror and I'd ask photographers about the best angles. I can now pull out a smile at will.