I started the class late. The teacher said I would have to learn as much in half a year that the others learned in a year. I did it.

I'd never been a teacher before and here I was starting my first day with these eager students. There was a shortage of teachers and they had been without a math teacher for six months. They were so excited to learn math.

I was 20 years old working as a roofer and a telemarketer and driving a taxi just barely getting by. A friend of a friend suggested I try acting. I was like 'Why? What am I going to do? Community theater?' But I took a class and the teacher thought that I had potential so I moved to Vancouver and started auditioning.

I had a great drama teacher in high school and that's when I started to learn about the history of theater.

When I started writing full time I had not long stopped being a teacher and when at last I had a full day to write I would put music on and wonder to myself - am I allowed to do this? Then I thought: 'I am control of this and no one is telling me what I can do.'

But I think that any young drummer starting out today should get himself a great teacher and learn all there is to know about the instrument that he wants to play.

Research is starting to show that a child should be engaged at least 20 hours a week. I do not think it matters which program you choose as long as it keeps the child actively engaged with the therapist teacher or parent for at least 20 hours a week.

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.

It's the price of success: people start to think you're omnipotent.

With the success of the last three or so years when a lot of people start treating you differently there's a danger that you may start to think of yourself differently. You rely on your friends to say 'Hey wake up!'

The success of Torn was a bit too much for me. I took a year off and was still scared to start the second album.

I'm starting to judge success by the time I have for myself the time I spend with family and friends. My priorities aren't amending they're shifting.

My store Wine Library outsells big national chains. How do you think we do it? It started with hustle. I always say that our success wasn't due to my hundreds of online videos about wine that went viral but to the hours I spent talking to people online afterward making connections and building relationships.

My career started young and I was really ambitious and then I had success and I hung out with people who were much older. I think I might have been temporally misplaced so I thought I was 40. It was a premature midlife crisis.

When somebody has an enormous success in this culture people start asking two questions which are 'What are you doing now?' and 'How are you going to beat that?' And I have to say I love the assumption that your intention is to beat yourself constantly - that you're in battle against yourself.

I had a lot of success from the start. I never really was tested for long periods of time. I got my first professional job while I was a senior in college. I signed with the William Morris Agency before I graduated.

They thought I was a success as soon as I started paying the bills.