Sometimes you're not even sure which of your stories were failures. There are things I've written that I thought were complete catastrophes when I finished with them that have gone on to generate some of my most positive feedback.

I always wanted to work at 'Take A Break' magazine you know just to inject a little bit of politics into their stories. I applied for a job there after I'd done my law degree and didn't even get an interview. I only wrote 'Garnethill' because I didn't get that job!

I want to write a book of poetry as well as children's stories.

I believe that the short story is as different a form from the novel as poetry is and the best stories seem to me to be perhaps closer in spirit to poetry than to novels.

I was a visual artist primarily and a writer even from a very young age. I wrote a lot of stories and poetry and... I had a desire to create always. And I always had a desire to show my work.

I work on words mostly toward them being poetry or short stories and then some of those become songs. They all find their place in the world but they all start off in the same place. I'm always painting and drawing as well and it's an ongoing creative assignment.

I'm not a writer. I think I can write short stories and poetry but film writing brilliant film writing is a talent - you can't just do it like that.

Traditional matter must be glorified since it would be easier to listen to the re-creation of familiar stories than to quite new and unexpected things the listeners we must remember needed poetry chiefly as the re-creation of tired hours.

When I was in college I used to write little ditties and short stories and poetry for my friends. Writing a book is another thing. It is so much different from my traditional day of dirty fingernails and greasy hair and hot pans.

As an actor there is room for a certain amount of creativity but you're always ultimately going to be saying somebody else's words. I don't think I'd have the stamina skill or ability to write a novel but I'd love to write short stories and poetry because those are my two passions.

Pet lovers know that animals sometimes understand us better than we do and the annals of human sin and desire provide plenty of stories to drive the point home.

We all know the stories about the Human Rights Act... about the illegal immigrant who cannot be deported because and I am not making this up he had a pet cat.

When I was in the Peace Corps I never made a phone call. I was in Central Africa I didn't make a phone call for two years. I was in Uganda for another four years and I didn't make a phone call. So for six years I didn't make a phone call but I wrote letters I wrote short stories I wrote books.

The Scriptures contain many stories of people who waited years or even decades before the Lord's promises came to pass. What modern believers can learn from the patience of biblical saints like Abraham Joseph David and Paul is that waiting upon the Lord has eternal rewards.

I've programmed myself musically to come up with love-feeling tracks that are romantic sexy but classy all in one. And that's the challenge. Once I create that music then the lyrical content starts to come - you know the stories and things like that.

What I'm trying to do is find either existing properties or come up with properties or angles or stories which will create music drama. It's my obsession and most of all I would like to remain working in theatre. I think it's very much alive.

I like movies about longing and desperation and dark and light things stories about people struggling to raise children and to have relationships and be intimate with each other.

In America we have so many movies and so much media about the Islamic world the sub-continental world but it's not a conversation it's a monologue. It's always from one point of view. 'If we don't tell our own stories no one will tell them' is my mantra.

I often begin movies with music in my head it's a very important dimension to me. Not just the music itself but how to use music in film: when and how and subtlety. I don't like to be too sweet in my stories and I like the abrasive clang the contrasting of sounds and cultures.

The movies that influenced me were movies that told their stories through pictures more than words.

I grew up on the crime stuff. Spillane Chandler Jim Thompson and noir movies like Fuller Orson Welles Fritz Lang. When I first showed up in New York to write comics back in the late 1970s I came with a bunch of crime stories but everybody just wanted men in tights.

A lot of the themes of my movies the actual stories come from tabloid stories.

All through my life what I've loved doing is watching movies. I love the escapism of film I love stories. So it is incredible to be able to be in them as much as I am to see them from the first stitch in a costume to the end product.

I'm a sci-fi girl. If I can have anything in life I'd want tons of great science-fiction movies and stories. It's so progressive beautiful and imaginative.