I don't write literary fiction - I write books that are entertaining but are also I hope well-constructed and thoughtful and funny and have things to say about men and women and families and children and life in America today.

The prospects for a coherent hilarious and consistent American comedy seem to lessen every year as the poor waterlogged gassy corpse called 'Evan Almighty' proved when it floated ashore recently. So there's a temptation to think too highly of Robin Williams's uneven but occasionally funny 'License to Wed.'

What I fell in love with as a child was 'My Fair Lady ' 'Funny Face ' 'American in Paris ' and 'Singin' in the Rain.' Just perfect movies to me and I was dancing. I started ballet when I was three. And I fell in love with those movies and fell in love with Audrey Hepburn and Leslie Caron.

And there's a visceral fun in watching Team America and making it like taking a puppet and throwing it against the wall. Because it's not CG there's something funny about it.

It's sad and upsetting when you see somebody crying hysterically but at the same time it's real funny.

The American audience has really opened up to women being A.) funny and B.) kinda crude. 'Bridesmaids' is R-rated and I think it was a major coup for women to have an R-rated comedy that did really well. Same as 'Bad Teacher.'

When I first envisioned 'Funny Games' in the mid-1990s it was my intention to have an American audience watch the movie. It is a reaction to a certain American cinema its violence its naivety the way American cinema toys with human beings. In many American films violence is made consumable.

It's funny how people who ain't never been down there can think that America is so fair and that we should be alright. It's funny that the people who have their foot on our neck are telling us 'Get up. What's wrong with you?'

I'm a misplaced American but don't know where I was misplaced.

Television has changed the American child from an irresistable force to an immovable object.