I'm thinking of taking up golf, but the idea of spending time with golfers frightens me.

The first time I went to Sturgis, I remember thinking, 'This motorcycle thing, this is me.'

By that time I was thinking a little about pro ball and hopeful that someone would draft me.

When I got successful and people started talking about me, I didn't want anyone thinking I thought I was a 'big time Charlie.'

The first time someone called me a role model, I remember thinking, 'What does that mean?' But I feel aware of it when I'm reading scripts.

I don't understand why people spend so much time thinking about me if they don't like what I do. I couldn't care less about things I don't like.

I'm a big hit at parties. Friends ask me to sing B-I-N-G-O all the time. I'm thinking, you know, of maybe putting out a Christmas album or something.

People tell me all the time I should stop and smell the roses, but I can't. I'm always thinking of what I can do to make what I have better and do more.

And I think for me there's a lot of neurosis involved with where you should be or thinking about where you are all the time instead of being where you are.

I remember my brother was always a jerk to me. One time, he bought Jimi Hendrix's 'Smash Hits,' and he gave it to me because he didn't like it, thinking it was a punishment.

My favorite New York memory is that blizzard in '96. I get chills thinking about it. It's my favorite time here - call me crazy. I'm from Canada, and it's very cold up there.

For me, a play is a form of writing which isn't complete until it is interpreted by actors. But it's still a form of writing. And so most of my time is spent thinking about how to write a sentence.

When I was a boy, my father used to criticize me for - it's hard to translate - I guess you could say 'mindless time.' Thinking what to do. I need to be bored so I can be pushed into doing something.

Oh, I just want what we all want: a comfortable couch, a nice beverage, a weekend of no distractions and a book that will stop time, lift me out of my quotidian existence and alter my thinking forever.

I will not compromise on language or content. At 15, people can handle the same language as me, they're just as complicated as me and are very interested in thinking about important questions for the first time.

I'm hugely negative, so if a joke doesn't land it takes me a long time to get over it. If something doesn't go well I go dark in my head. Basically I start thinking it should be illegal for me to be doing comedy.

What is universal can be surprising. Over time you find the kind of stuff which has people thinking 'That is just something that occurred to me... there's something wrong with me', is in fact stuff that is universal.

I'm not thinking about me that much anymore. Every time I look, I'm looking for my daughter, you know? If I'm in a store, I'm looking at baby clothes. It's so much cuter to find things for her than to find things for me.

If the powers that be really knew how much time I spent thinking about and researching celebrities, they probably wouldn't let me anywhere near the red carpet. But, please promise not to tell them. I'm harmless, I swear.

People have asked me a lot, 'What comes first? The pictures or the story? The story or the picture?' It's hard to describe because often they seem to come at the same time. I'm seeing images while I'm thinking of the story.

I can't remember a time when I stepped into an airport or train station without wishing I were somewhere else, doing almost anything else. Just thinking about traveling gives me the willies. Traveling and dyslexia don't really get along.

I would be trying to play hockey with my friends, but most of the time, the coach put me on the bench. Because I was too dreamy - I was dreaming all of the time. I was super bad on the ice because I was just thinking about something else.

Throughout your teens and twenties, it's pretty easy to live in a suspended reality - one where you never get old or need to spend much time thinking about 401Ks, mammograms, or renewing your license. You don't need me to tell you: that ends.

I spend a lot of time thinking, if not daydreaming. People think of me as a genre writer, and a genre writer is supposed to be prolific. Since that's how people perceive me, they have to say I'm prolific. But I don't find that either complimentary or accurate.

My most memorable meal was with my parents at Joel Robuchon's Restaurant Jamin in Paris. It was Christmas 1982, and the flavors - from cauliflower and caviar to crab and tomato - astounded me. It was the first time I remember thinking that I would like to really learn how to cook.

I came here from Romania when I was 12 years old. I had an accent. High school was tough a little bit for a few years. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be liked. I wanted to be good-looking. I wanted to be popular. I spent a lot of time thinking, 'What are these people going to think of me?'

People are really surprised when they meet me that I'm a recluse. People think I'm very gregarious and outgoing - and I am - I'm thinking about writing a book about it called 'The Gregarious Recluse.' How the more that you put me out there in front of audiences, the more that when I have down time I have to disappear.

When I was first thinking about what would become Venture for America, I was trying to figure out how to solve a problem - that our top young people were being driven to roles that did not, to me, address the needs of our time. That VFA would be a non-profit just seemed like the most efficient way to solve the problem.

'The Machinist' changed me. I learned that I really enjoy, literally, not saying a damned word for days at a time, except for what was in the scene. Whole days of... nothing. Just... standing still. I know a lot of people found it bizarre, because they'd be standing right next to me thinking, 'Why aren't we talking? What's going on?'

I have a huge scarf from Hermes that I bought the day I signed my record deal. I had never had an Hermes scarf. And I ran to buy one, thinking, 'Now, this is a symbol, I need one, I need an Hermes scarf,' which actually now I'm quite embarrassed about. Most of the time I twist it so much that no one notices it, and just bundle it around me.

Writing a book is a long and difficult process for me. I'm a slow writer, so I spend the year with Elvis Cole and Joe Pike in my head. I was thinking about this the other day. I wrote the first book in 1987. Literally every day since that time, Elvis and Joe have been in my head. They're always there. I started these guys because I like them.

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