My dad and mom divorced when I was around ten and I didn't live with him after that though he was close by and we saw each other weekly. I wasn't really aware that he was a writer I didn't start reading his writing until I was about fifteen. It occurred to me then that my dad was kind of special he's still one of my favorite writers.

My dad told me that no one could ever make it as a writer that my chances were equivalent to winning the lottery - which was good for me because I like to have something to prove.

My dad was the baby. When he was born they were already successful. They sent him to business school - he probably would have loved to have been a poet or a writer or something and he was very creative.

Right now it hasn't affected my music other than the fact that I don't have time to write any of it. That's no different from when I first started and I lived at home. I would play the guitar in the afternoon and then my mom or my dad would come home and I'd have to quit.

My dad was a sports writer when I was younger and then he became just a general columnist. But I grew up with him literally getting into brawls with football coaches.

My dad is a bank president and my mom was an accountant and they didn't think that seeking the life of a freelance writer was very practical you see. Of course I was just as determined to do it.

My dad was an editor and a writer and that's actually what I aspired to be.

When I started writing I did have some idealised notion of my dad as a writer. But I have less and less of a literary rivalry with him as I've gone on. I certainly don't feel I need his approval although maybe that's because I'm confident that I've got it.

I'm a dad I'm a husband I'm an activist I'm a writer and I'm just a student of the world.

It may not be the most popular but there is a place for it. I think about the kind of music I love acoustic melodic and I guess it kind of took a bit of courage on my part to think I could be one of those songwriters.

I think what I would say to my younger self and probably to younger just starting-out writers is that a lot of times you're just afraid to put yourself out there and it's uncomfortable because it's working up the courage to do something to push yourself to do those things.

I'm a writer of faith who worries about the intolerance of religion. I look at the past and fear we haven't learned from it. I believe that humanity is capable of evil as well as great acts of courage and goodness. I have hope. Deep down I believe in the human spirit although sometimes that belief is shaken.

When somebody who makes movies for a living - either as an actor writer producer or director - lives to be a certain age you have to admire them. It is an act of courage to make a film - a courage for which you are not prepared in the rest of life. It is very hard and very destructive. But we do it because we love it.

We need men with moral courage to speak and write their real thoughts and to stand by their convictions even to the very death.

L.A.'s cool I had a run with it to where it just pretty much wore me out. I love the weather and I have great friends there great family but I really cannot take a lot of the culture. Like Nashville where everybody's a songwriter everybody out there is an actor.

The cool thing about writing is that there is really never a typical day. Sometimes I get a rhythm going and head off to work every morning and come home at night. Sometimes I'll write for two days straight and then be utterly blank for the next two.

Everyone is different but I'm not standoffish at all. I'm not one of those people who prefer to write a note. I'll walk right up to you and ask you out! Even if the answer's no I'm totally cool with it.

All literature consists of whatever the writer thinks is cool. The reader will like the book to the degree that he agrees with the writer about what's cool.

I love people and I love to be with people and to make music with people but my natural state is to revert back to being by myself in my house which is cool because that's where I practice and write and listen and study.

I definitely dislike pomposity and artifice. I hope that I'm not that. Once I write a song it belongs to the world and the way people perceive it it's cool.

The military is a very cool world to write about. I went down to Ft. Benning Ga. for military training and I learned a lot about soldiers and officers and why they joined up and what their life has been like.

I never set out to become 'famous.' I mean when you're 14 you think 'I'm gonna become a writer and people will want my autograph and that'll be cool ' but you grow up and you learn that's just not how the world works. I resigned myself to the fact that I would probably never be published and if I did it probably wouldn't be a big deal.

Some of the hip-hop stuff people get into is exciting because there's a passion and there's something to explain to a more mainstream audience so you get these passionate writers who want to express their love for rap and hip-hop which is cool.

Melanie Fiona is a singer a songwriter she's a super-girl. I can be silly goofy really chilled. She's like your cool chill girlfriend sister-friend. I'm just like everybody else.