I got interested in the idea of music that could make itself in a sense in the mid 1960s really when I first heard composers like Terry Riley and when I first started playing with tape recorders.

Once I started working with generative music in the 1970s I was flirting with ideas of making a kind of endless music - not like a record that you'd put on which would play for a while and finish.

I started playing piano when I was 6. And I knew that wanted to be involved in that form of expression whether it was through music or acting or dancing or painting or writing.

I think I first realized I wanted to be in country music and be an artist when I was 10. And I started dragging my parents to festivals and fairs and karaoke contests and I did that for about a year before I came to Nashville for the first time. I was 11 and I had this demo CD of me singing Dixie Chicks and Leanne Rimes songs.

I felt I really wanted to back off from music completely and just work within the visual arts in some way. I started painting quite passionately at that time.

I get bored easily so I need to do a lot. I've started a record label so I get to nurture new talent and talk about music which is a passion of mine. I've written another book. And I get to come to work and do the TV show which is always really fun.

Look when I started out mainstream culture was Sinatra Perry Como Andy Williams Sound of Music. There was no fitting into it then and of course there's no fitting into it now.

What's that line from TS Eliot? To arrive at the place where you started but to know it for the first time. I'm able to write about a breakup from a different place. Same brokenness. Same rock-bottom. But a little more informed now I'm older. Thank God for growing up.

The reason I started writing movies was because I kept getting parts that I just kind of stepped into. I didn't have to do a lot of work and I ended up getting sort of bored.

When I started doing movies every crew member was older than me.

I didn't know this about myself but when 'Pirates of the Caribbean' came out I realised that I didn't enjoy a huge amount of recognition. I didn't react to it well but I think life is about finding out who you are and what you like. So I started doing independent movies and art-house films instead.

Skinniness is not your friend when you're over 40. I'd like to gain a good 10 pounds but I did always have a fat round face that plagued me when I was young. When I started to make movies I couldn't look at myself.

I never think it's right to chew gum in front of other people but a lot of times I'll come in for a meeting chewing gum and I'll forget I'm chewing it. Then you don't want to swallow it because it stays in your system for seven years or something so I've asked to throw it away. I've started to wonder if that's why I didn't get certain movies.

When I started to watch some of the films I'd done I realized I was doing movies that I might not actually want to see.

I was never into the popular school or clique or anything. Then I started doing movies when I was in high school so then I got popular. Then the girls paid attention to you who didn't before.

When newspapers started to publish the box office scores of movies I was horrified. Those results are totally fake because they never include the promotion budget.

I used to love to go to the movies - I'd see two in a row. A few times I even snuck into the second movie after it started... now that I think about it that's kind of like shoplifting! Needless to say I still love going to the movies but I don't sneak in anymore.

The secret of getting ahead is getting started.

I have come to understand and appreciate writers much more recently since I started working on a book last fall. Before that I thought golf writers got up every morning played a round of golf had lunch showed up for our last three holes and then went to dinner.

I get started at 5:30 in the morning and write till 10 A.M. Then I hike six or seven miles before going back to work.

What I remember when I started to write was how I couldn't wait to get up in the morning to get to my characters.

My wife gets pampered pretty well. She's had me trained since she was pregnant when I started making her oatmeal with fresh berries every morning.

I started playing poker in 2003 during my pregnancy to distract myself from my awful morning sickness. For months all I did was cry and play Texas Hold'em.

I started writing morning pages just to keep my hand in you know just because I was a writer and I didn't know what else to do but write. And then one day as I was writing a character came sort of strolling in and I realized Oh my God I don't have to be just a screenwriter. I can write novels.