I don't write from dreams because I don't remember mine, but I had a fragment of an image left about twins, whose father was telling them how their lives were going to go for the next eight years. I wrote a scene about that, and then another and then another and then another, and after five months I had 732 pages.
I grew up in the South under segregation. So, I know what terrorism feels like - when your father could be taken out in the middle of the night and lynched just because he didn't look like he was in an obeying frame of mind when a white person said something he must do. I mean, that's terrorism, too.
I didn't get to college until my 20s, because I was a young father on welfare and had to take all kind of jobs to support my young son. There's what frames my view on the topics I discuss on my shows, and the average person relates to that. No matter how many degrees I have now, I lived that life, and that comes through to the people watching.
My father was a studio musician, played for a lot of people like Frank Zappa and a lot of R&B bands, and was always gone doing that. Then when he was home, he was practicing. And so I always saw it, and I always wanted to do what he did.
My father's political heroes were Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.
One girl who stands out was this Miami stripper. She still lives with her mother and father, and they know she strips. They call her by her stripper name, Freaky Red.
On my mother's side, I'm English, so that's where the freckles come from. On my father's side, I'm German, and he has the fantastic olive hues... I was given mum's skin, whereas my brothers and sisters were given my dad's skin. I do tan up quite well, but it takes me a bit longer.
I have an understanding of Queen and the way Freddie Mercury did his harmonies. I know what tablas sound like, because my father played a lot of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.
Free agency, given us through the plan of our Father, is the great alternative to Satan's plan of force. With this sublime gift, we can grow, improve, progress, and seek perfection.
What I'm not saying is that all government spending is bad. It's not - far, far from it, but there is no free lunch, as a former colleague of mine used to say. There is no public tooth fairy. Father Christmas does not work on the Treasury staff this year. You can never bail someone out of trouble without putting someone else into trouble.
My mother pretty much raised me to be a free spirit. Anything my father would say, she would tell me, 'No, it's like this.'
My mother's father was from Brazil - a painter, and not a famous one - and was always broke. But he was a free spirit, a great grandfather.
My father was a freelance writer/director/producer, and my mother was a stewardess for Pan-Am. It was very non-traditional.
If you want someone who is sort of still, has a bit of an edge, is older, you get Morgan Freeman. If you want someone who can carry a gun and still play a father, you get Danny Glover. My category is 'that guy who happens to be black.'
I remember driving the tractor on our farm, and Tim McGraw would be on the radio. I'd find myself walking out of class, singing his songs. And then Tim ended up playing my father in 'Friday Night Lights.' It was surreal.
Our family was on the lunatic fringe. My mother was always completely irrepressible. My father made crowd noises into a microphone.
My father went to catch wild frogs. I was skinny and weak, and my father heard their juice would give me size and strength. It tasted very, very bad... but I had to drink it because I wanted to be a footballer, and everyone said I needed to be bigger and stronger.
I believe in Father Frost. But not too deeply. But anyway, you know, I'm not one of those people who are able to tell the kids that Father Frost does not exist.
I frowned just like Winston Churchill on his worst day, and I reminded my father of a judge who had presided over a case... I've been Judge ever since I was two weeks old.
My love for artichokes comes from when I was very young. My mother and father would slice the hearts and fry them, and they would be crispy around the leaves and tender at the base.
