If I can procure three hundred good substantial names of persons or bodies or institutions I cannot fail to do well for my family although I must abandon my life to its success and undergo many sad perplexities and perhaps never see again my own beloved America.

The first series I wrote 'L.A. Candy ' was always meant to be a three-book series so when I started out it was all outlined that way and by the time I was done with the third book I had become so involved and the process and the stories I was a little bit sad to be done.

My comedy is for children from three to 93. You do need a slightly childish sense of humour and if you haven't got that it's very sad.

Well the country songs themselves are three-chord stories ballads which are mostly sad. If you are already feeling sorry for yourself when you listen to them they will take you to an even sadder place.

I get some of my ideas from watching my three daughters but most of them come from my own memories of growing up. I can remember how romantic I was not just about love but romance in the classic sense - the romantic ideals: of honor and truth of loyalty sacrifice and fairness. Those were the elements that made a story satisfying to me.

After these three novels I gave up writing novels for a time I was dissatisfied with romantic doom yet didn't see much way around it.

For a romantic comedy to be three hours long that's longer than most marriages.

I joined the air force. I took to it immediately when I arrived there. I did three years eight months and ten days in all but it took me a year and a half to get disabused of my romantic notions about it.

Other times you can get showy for three minutes and that's OK with certain films. But that isn't right with an Ang Lee movie you have to fit right in. You have to understand Ang respect him and be part of the team and not be in charge of it - he is in charge of it.

Well I had an immense respect for Cirque du Soleil when I first say them in the '80s on a television show and just thought you know this group is really reinventing the circus as you know. Because there wasn't three rings. There were no animals.