I played piano for cabaret stars and stuff and then eventually moved from my hometown of Perth in Western Australia to Melbourne, and somewhere in there, I decided to book myself a room and do a cabaret show of my own material.
Cabaret is a much more up close and personal experience, which I enjoy very much. This is a tremendous difference to being in a large theatre, doing a book show, where there is more separation. But both have equal importance.
I'm not gonna do the same, tired, standard 'I was born in a log cabin...' kind of book. There's so much more I want to do.
Some years ago, I wrote a book called the Emperor's New Mind and that book was describing a point of view I had about consciousness and why it was not something that comes about from complicated calculations.
I think a book is your calling card, your business card.
Generally a chef's book is like a calling card or a portfolio to display their personal work.
What has influenced my life more than any other single thing has been my stammer. Had I not stammered I would probably... have gone to Cambridge as my brothers did, perhaps have become a don and every now and then published a dreary book about French literature.
I did not end up as broadly educated as my Cambridge colleagues, but I graduated probably better equipped to write a book on my chosen subject.
I think we get too hung up on categories. Obviously, the book market has to categorise things, and it makes it easier for a reader to go into a bookshop and choose, but as a writer, it helps to get rid of all of that and imagine you are a storyteller around a campfire.
It may be that a majority of superheroes are white males. But that's because they used to all be white males, except for Wonder Woman and Black Canary and maybe one or two others. Now there are Spanish, Puerto Rican comic book superheroes, black superheroes, and women superheroes.
When former Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote his recent book, 'Duty', it was full of tough assessments and candor.
'The Prince's blunt candor has been a scandal for 500 years. The book was placed on the Papal Index of banned books in 1559, and its author was denounced on the Elizabethan stages of London as the 'Evil Machiavel.' The outrage has not dimmed with time.
Genuine polemics approach a book as lovingly as a cannibal spices a baby.
For starters, let's dispense with the cheap jokes about cannibalism. That means cracks about giving an arm and a leg - sorry - for a good book on the subject, or similar tasteless - sorry, again - attempts to make the subject more palatable - last one.
Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.
I'd been doing the Chicago theatre thing for years. The money was kinda good - thanks to a push by my old pal Capone, who, let's say, persuaded theatre owners to book me.
'MAD Magazine' put out a book that was a collection of Trump cartoons, and they asked me to do the forward because they knew that I was a fan because I'd done stories and tweeted about 'MAD.' So I did the forward and asked them if I could do a cartoon. They let me, and I did caricatures of myself and Wolf Blitzer.
I don't think tablets are where we should be focused. But I do think they could end up being an efficient way of delivering textbooks. They're just not really that, yet. There's all sorts of poisons and mined minerals and carnage that goes on to make a tablet. Way more than to print a book. Or a bunch of books.
The Carrie in the plot was too much like the Carrie in the book. She smoked, she swore a lot, she was very hard, very cynical. I could never have pulled it off.
Tick is a cartoon character, I don't know if you're familiar with him. This is the third step in his evolution. Comic book to cartoon to, now, live-action.
