It's hard to read good fiction when I am writing, because if it is really good I catch myself sort of inadvertently imitating a great writer.
I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.
For me, law school was a time of joy and hope. Joy in learning my way around the law - learning how to orbit a problem and to ask myself hard questions and to be asked hard questions. Hope that I could be of some use, to be part of the greater good - to make the world a little bit better.
If things are not so good, you may be one to imagine something better. For me, I was able to imagine myself as in a role of greater importance than I would seem to be ordinarily.
Perhaps the greatest challenge has been trying to keep my time to myself and my private life private in order to do my job. Everything that is most mine belongs to everyone now.
I grew up in a single-wide, three-bedroom mobile home with my family. And now I see them, like, half a dozen times a year. Figuring out how to come home and talk to them again and feel like myself has probably been the greatest challenge.
I think the greatest gift to me is that I can express myself in songs. It helps me get through some of the hardest times of my life. It also helps me celebrate some of the best times.
In playing, I suppose my greatest gift was to express the way I felt or the willingness to express myself.
Eating good food is, to me, one of life's greatest joys, and I will never punish myself for it.
And I would never set myself out to be the best parent or the greatest man.
What I say now is that the way the world underestimates me will be my greatest weapon. People pat me on the head, and I go to myself, oh, and aren't they going to be surprised.
People ask me often, 'Why did you leave Green Bay? You had the best quarterback, you were going good and all that.' But I've always been one for challenges. Try to build something up, try something new, challenge myself.
I don't feel comfortable with the idea that my only gateway into doing what I love to do is auditioning for other people to give me the green light and say that I'm allowed to do it, or that I'm allowed to play this role, or that I'm allowed to be in this movie. I would feel much more comfortable making those opportunities for myself.
Sixty felt like a big landmark. Not in a dreadful sense, but none of the other birthdays have bothered me. It's got labels on it - OAP, retirement - and I just wanted to take stock. I wanted to be in my greenhouse at home and at least give myself the opportunity of not working again.
My older brother was a musical prodigy, and he got a scholarship to the Bronx House Music School. We moved to the Bronx when I was 4 to be close to his music school. Then I got a music scholarship myself, at the age of 6, but that was for a school down in Greenwich Village. I had to take the elevated train and then the subway to get there.
I was gregarious as a kid, but I think the idea of actually getting to know people, I'm just shy. It sort of takes me a minute to want to sit down and talk about myself.
I'm quite gregarious. But when it comes to relationships, I mean, I'm no good at it. I suck at it. And people say I'm way too hard on myself, but I always feel like somebody else is going to say it if I don't. Why not just beat them to the punch so it doesn't hurt so much?
After 'Gremlins' came out, I should have packed up everything, moved to Los Angeles from New York, and dedicated myself to being a full time film actor. I had the world at my feet.
What I do is spend too much time thinking. Most of the time I just walk around annoyed. Would I describe myself as relatively happy, I suppose, but society gets to me. And the people that have mastered life seem to not care, and then they die, and then the grenade goes off.
I intend to inspire people with my story: motivate young people that grew up like myself, or even not like myself. Just, you know, go through the human experience.
