I've often felt like an outsider, not necessarily because I'm Korean, an immigrant, or female. I think writers are odd people.

I moved to Queens, New York, when I was seven and a half. I went to middle school in a foreign country, but I had so many different kinds of Americans push me along and encourage me. I was very odd. I didn't talk very well. We were poor, and we didn't have any connections, but people showed up and pushed me along.

Twenty-five million people who live in North Korea are denied freedom in every respect of their lives. In short, they are hostages. Imagine 25 million hostages.

There's a lot of freedom in failure, and I can see that now.

I still find it quite easy to find my way into a child's imagination. We're all Peter Pan ourselves in some respects. Everybody should keep some grip on childhood, even as a grownup.

Before my first child was born, I had nothing going on professionally really, and it's been a very blessed period of creativity for me since he arrived. It's very surreal. It's almost as if the babies are out there pulling strings somewhere, deciding what kind of life they want to be born into.

There is always something I gain from watching a movie, whether it's a silly romantic comedy or an art film.

Can anybody be given a great degree of creativity? No. They can be given the equipment to develop it-if they have it in them in the first place.