There are many great writers out there and, actually, great scripts. The problem is - and this is what I've always felt, even when I got out of school and started reading scripts - the really smart, character-driven stuff tends to be smaller films, and they just don't get made.
And I tell ya, when I sit in that sound booth and started reading the script and starting to get into the character, man, it's an easy jump for me, because I understand what it's all about.
I didn't start working on children's books until I got a job at a book warehouse on the children's floor. When I started reading some of the books, I was so impressed.
I was interested in the war part of 'Star Wars,' so I started reading about what it's like to go to war, what that does to you psychically, about the adrenaline and the rush.
I was twelve years old when I started reading 'Vogue.'
I started reading the big histories and the small histories, the memoirs and so forth. At some point, I found the diary of William E. Dodd.
Before 'This is Our Youth', I did a week of table reading 'Airline Highway' at Steppenwolf in Chicago while the author, Lisa D'Amour, workshopped it.
I always loved reading. Growing up, my favorite book was 'A Child's Garden of Verses,' by Robert Louis Stevenson.
I confess that reading proofs is a pleasure. It stimulates and inspires me.
I didn't stutter when I was reading lines in a script. When I got away from myself, I didn't have that problem.
I was reading scripts, doing coverage, for CAA. Reading hundreds and hundreds of scripts across the board, from blind submissions to 'Brokeback Mountain'. It was not always a pleasant task but something, in hindsight, I'm glad I did.
I was the one with a subscription to 'Sky and Telescope' magazine as a kid while my friends were reading 'Tiger Beat.'
People are always telling me that they've seen people reading my books on the subway, or the beach, or whenever.
My mother always kept library books in the house, and one rainy Sunday afternoon - this was before television, and we didn't even have a radio - I picked up a book to look at the pictures and discovered I was reading and enjoying what I read.
When my younger son was 13 years old, he asked me to read 'Swallows and Amazons' to him while he made models. He liked it so much that I ended up reading all thirteen of Ransome's books, including the ones that I missed out on. This led my son to 'Treasure Island,' 'Robinson Crusoe' and 'Coral Island.'
I've been reading tabloids since I was nine. I love a good story.
There are no taboos. Every topic is open, however shocking. It is the way that the topics are handled that's important, and that applies whether it is a 15-year-old who is reading your book or someone who is 55.
Tact is after all a kind of mind reading.
When I write, I'm still imagining a kid reading it on paper. I read e-books when I travel, but in general I still prefer holding an old-fashioned book in my hands. There's a special, tactile experience.
I love reading poetry, and yet, at this point, the thought of writing a poem, to me, is tantamount to figuring out a trigonometry question.