Don't worry about writing a book or getting famous or making money. Just lead an interesting life.

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.

I have a great job writing for 'The Office ' but really all television writers do is dream of one day writing movies. I'll put it this way: At the Oscars the most famous person in the room is like Angelina Jolie. At the Emmys the huge exciting celebrity is Bethenny Frankel. You get what I mean.

I do a lot of writing about my family.

If I'm not writing well I'm not happy. If I'm not spending enough time with my family I'm not happy. If I'm not connecting to friends or if I don't work out enough... You get the point. Everything has to be balanced. Nothing should be an extreme.

Frankly I'm fairly boring or fairly busy. Between writing and family I have little time for anything else.

As a novelist I mined my history my family and my memory but in a very specific way. Writing fiction I never made use of experiences immediately as they happened. I needed to let things fester in my memory mature and transmogrify into something meaningful.

People had this image of the Jacksons as the perfect American family and I destroyed that image. But what people have to understand is writing that book was very healing for me.

The only sensible ends of literature are first the pleasurable toil of writing second the gratification of one's family and friends and lastly the solid cash.

And in that I cannot send unto you all my businesses in writing I despatch these present bearers fully informed in all things to whom it may please you to give faith and credence in what they shall say unto you by word of mouth.

Writing is an act of faith not a trick of grammar.

The assertion of failure coming from such persons does not mean that Mr. Mill failed to promote the practical success of those objects the advocacy of which forms the chief feature of his political writings.

I made a very conscious effort to finish 'The Cypress House' before 'So Cold the River' launched because I thought that would help build a buffer between my writing and any impact that came from either the success or the failure of that first book.

My failure during the first five or six years of my art training to get set in the right direction and the disappointment which it caused me drove me the more persistently into writing as an alternative.

The failure of The Cable Guy impacted my career. I had to start writing and acting again.

Schools don't really allow failure and yet it's a valid part of any endeavour not just writing.

I can't say I'm not grateful to have journalists writing about me as a genius. But I know it's not true. I'm not confused. I understand that success comes through a lot of failure and a lot of very embarrassing failure. People want to create the next Facebook but they are too afraid to create the next Facemash.

I find writing very difficult. It's hard and it hurts sometimes and it's scary because of the fear of failure and the very unpleasant feeling that you may have reached the limit of your abilities.

Failure in the theater is more dramatic and uglier than any other form of writing. It costs so much you feel so guilty.

When I'm writing I'm constantly thinking about myself because it's the only experience I have to draw on. And I don't see an exact reflection of myself in every face in the audience but I know that my songs have validity to them and that's why the fans are there.

When I'm writing I'm trying to immerse myself in the chaos of an emotional experience rather than separate myself from it and look back at it from a distance with clarity and tell it as a story. Because that's how life is lived you know?

Directing is a more pragmatic experience where you have to deal with the restrictions of time and money that force you to make certain decisions you don't have to make when you're writing.

The act of writing... is the act of trying to understand why my opinion is what it is. And ultimately I think that's the same experience the reader has when they pick up one of my books.

I have a mess in my head sometimes and there's something very satisfying about putting it into words. Certainly it's not something that you're in charge of necessarily but writing about it putting it into your words can be a very powerful experience.