I was a writer. I just wasn't a very good one. I was lucky enough to have a playwriting teacher who told me that I'd be a better actor than I would a playwright.

As a teacher at Princeton I'm surrounded by people who work hard so I just make good use of my time. And I don't really think of it as work - writing a novel in one sense is a problem-solving exercise.

It is by teaching that we teach ourselves by relating that we observe by affirming that we examine by showing that we look by writing that we think by pumping that we draw water into the well.

I don't really distinguish between sympathy and honesty when I'm writing. The two go together - I'm interested in inhabiting my characters seeing the world through their eyes.

I have to have a character worth caring about. I tend not to start writing books about people I don't have a lot of sympathy for because I'm just going to be with them too long.

The writing of a melody is an emotional moment success doesn't make it easy.

My overnight success was really 15 years in the making. I'd been writing songs since I was 6 and playing in bands and performing since I was 14.

I like writing for children. It seems to me that most people underestimate their understanding and the strength of their feelings and in my books for them I try to put this right.

But my strength was in singing and songwriting which was a new discovery for me when I was 18. And I decided if I pursued songwriting which is what was closest to my heart then there would be no competition. I would just live my life being myself and living my dream.

There's a kind of a fundamental irresponsibility in playwriting and the strength of playwriting comes from that irresponsibility.

While writing my first 90 books I was magazine editor publisher book publisher executive etc. so I was established in publishing. three of my seven or so books were biographies of sports stars and really opened doors for me in that area.

I'm not good at anything except writing jokes. I wasn't good at sports I wasn't good at anything artsy ever. I think there was a real worry for a while about what I would be good at. I was just this chubby little Indian kid who looked like a nerd.

Breaking records is not something you expect to be doing. That's like a sports thing it's not usually a comedy and writing thing.

The only thing of value I have in this life is my ability to tell a story whether in print orating writing it down or having people acting it out. That's why I'm always hoping society never collapses because the first ones to go will be entertainers.

One of the things I keep coming back to in my writing is that society doesn't work on this mirror principle you don't have an exact replica on the left of what you have on the right. It just doesn't work that way.

I love a good laugh as well I think that's so important in life which is probably why I've dabbled in comedy writing as well as horror. I think if you can make someone laugh or smile it's the most special thing in the world.

I sort of was good at writing essays. I was never very good at mathematics and I was never very good at algebra. I loved science but I wasn't sure of it.