One of the best lessons I learned early is that not everything in life is about you. It is about service. If you want trips and excessive gifts, then don't get into public service.

Is the president purposefully using propaganda and hyperbole to garner the American public for support?

I think anybody that gives their opinion in a confident way everyday is going to be criticized.

So the mayor of New Orleans would have used his own buses had the people had been white?

What happens is that people who are very religious but who are not in touch with reality, cannot be spiritual.

There are sad moments - lonely moments - when you're sitting up in your room all by yourself, shooting on location in Atlanta or Vancouver or L.A., and your family's back home. You can miss home.

If I'm not working, I have home time with my family, and if I spend that stressing what's going to happen next, then it's a waste. I have a lot to be thankful for.

Writing is a spiritual practice in that people that have no spiritual path can undertake it and, as they write, they begin to wake up to a larger connection. After a while, people tend to find that there is some muse that they are connecting to.