Who made me laugh when I was growing was Chaplin and the Marx Brothers, and then moving on, there were so many that I was a writer for for many years: I was a writer for the Smothers Brothers, Lily Tomlin, then I started on 'Saturday Night Live' as the head writer the first year we started it.

I started running to different albums, and I was starting with the short albums and moving on to the longer albums. I was interested in how they built up, in tempo and intensity. it made me interested in albums again, too.

This is a profession for me, but I started off as a self-publisher working on my own schedule and my own stuff before moving on to graphic novels with First Second Books, where there was definitely a schedule, but it was very different from monthly comics.

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.

Even after I got started in TV and the movies, I didn't sit around waiting on parts. I kept busy.

I was eight years old when I knew I wanted to be an actress. I slowly started by getting into commercials, and then I was an extra on a TV show. And then the movies happened.

I'm the first Icelandic director who started working on U.S. movies. There are others behind me now, but it's like when Bjork opened the door for Icelandic musicians to work abroad. We're such a closed-off country, but Bjork broke the spell. And I'm glad it was a woman who did it. She showed us we could break this barrier.

I really spent most of my childhood in my bedroom watching Barbra Streisand movies and musicals and making videos. That was kind of where it all started for me. I would go to the beach occasionally.

I started out as an assistant to a director on two movies, Miguel Arteta. The movies I worked on were 'Chuck and Buck' and 'The Good Girl.' I didn't even know I wanted to be a director until I started working with Miguel.

I would say I was, I guess, a toddler when I actually found my passion because, when I was little, I used to mimic all these movies and sing all this music that you wouldn't think a toddler would know. I would think my passion just started there, and it just grew with me.

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 think most fans of movies that have withstood the test of time don't like for them to be tinkered with. I think that's a pretty general consensus. You like to remember what you started with.

I was a kid living in New Jersey, who - I'd wanted to make movies since I was a little kid, so that came before music for me. But I started playing drums just as a hobby, and I wasn't even really into jazz that much.

When I came out, it wasn't a big formal conversation like in the movies. I just started living as my true and authentic self and opened up my life to my parents - sharing who I was, and bringing a girlfriend when I came home for a visit. To my great surprise, my parents accepted me for who I was and have supported me since.

I did a few movies, but the word 'star'... I cannot compare to a star like Clint Eastwood. I used to call Clint 'Larry Dickman' when he would come to my show; then, he started using the name when he would go under cover in a 'Dirty Harry' movie. That's why he's a movie star... he's so creative.

I always loved silent movies. I was not a specialist, but I loved them. And when I started directing, I became really fascinated by the format - how it works, the device of the silent movie. It's not the same form of expression as a talkie. The lack of sounds makes you participate in the storytelling.

I'm not a real movie star. I've still got the same wife I started out with twenty-eight years ago.

I started doing motivational tours. I've seen all kinds of people, from the CEOs to the lowest executive, opening up to their fears. We don't introspect as much as we should.

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.

The secret of getting ahead is getting started.

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.

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 working a Saturday job at this French cafe from when I was about 14. I lived two minutes away from the cafe and went there every morning. One day, the manager asked if I wanted to work there. I'd never worked before, so thought I'd give it a go.

It was huge to read the Proverbs of the day every morning, it was huge to read the Psalm of the day every morning and to get that in us and get us going before the day even started.