Melville brought to the task a sound knowledge of actual whaling much curious learning in the literature of the subject and above all an imagination which worked with great power upon the facts of his own experience.

It's a wonderful thing working with young actors. I know a lot of people don't like working with children. I actually adore it because you watch their imagination open up and you watch them start to learn this job that I've been doing for so long. They come with such a lack of cynicism.

It's definitely true that there are a lot of the devices we used on 'Star Trek ' that came out the imagination of the writers and the creators that are actually in the world today.

The thing that most attracts me to historical fiction is taking the factual record as far as it is known using that as scaffolding and then letting imagination build the structure that fills in those things we can never find out for sure.

There must be room for the imagination to exercise its powers we must conceive and apprehend a thousand things which we do not actually witness.

I've always felt that what I have going for me is not my imagination because everyone has an imagination. What I have is a relentlessly controlled imagination. What looks like wild invention is actually quite carefully calculated.

Once we got over the origin story we could really delve deeper into their lives and characters and angst. So this movie actually has more heart more humor.

I certainly didn't say while writing 'Gossip Girl ' 'Oh this is going to be big!' It was really like 'Oh god everyone's gong to hate these people! They're so bratty!' But I actually think what is so appealing about them is the humor in them.

Humor can help you cope with the unbearable so that you can stay on the bright side of things until the bright side actually comes along.

Jim Thorpe is someone I've always loved. He was an Olympic athlete you know and a football player from back in the day. I'd love to play him. And then there's a guy called Iceman who was a top hit man for the mob. I would love to play him. Actually it's sort of in the works so I hope it goes through.