I love the Beatles, and when I was very young, I had young parents, so Led Zeppelin and Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles constantly were big influences on my life.
I love painting and music, of course. I don't know nearly as much about them as I know about poetry. I've certainly been influenced by fiction. I was overwhelmed by War and Peace when I read it, and I didn't read it until I was in my late 20s.
I take inspiration from books, movies, television, music - it all goes in the hopper. Depending on the project, I'm drawing from this or that piece of art that has stayed with me. Toni Morrison, George Romero, Sonic Youth - they are all in there.
As was shown in 'Soorma,' for me, my father and brother have been my heroes.
Some of my biggest influences are people like Steven Wright and Todd Berry. I'm a shy person, and I don't think people who aspire to do comedy think that's an option.
I have very positive memories of reading biographies of unusual Americans as a child.
Influences come from everywhere. I don't really feel like I had too many influences for the first record because I grew up listening to music in church, and that was pretty much it. I didn't really grow up listening to AC/DC and all those bands.
I've always been interested in visual art and used to be much more into theater when I was younger, or more knowledgeable about what's going on. And literature has played a big part in my life.
Growing up I wanted to be a mixture of Audrey Hepburn and Lucille Ball. Apparently I told my mum when I was eight that I wanted to be an actor.
Madonna is my role model shes such a powerful woman. I love Gwenyth Paltrow, shes an actress I aspire to be like. And, of course, my mom. She drove me from New Jersey to New York every day for commercials so I could get where I am today.
In terms of people that I know, my grandmother and my mother are huge influences on my writing life because they are both massively supportive and always have been of my career.
When I started to write realistic, real fiction, the voices that were the strongest for me - the characters that I heard, the people that I knew - were the ones from my childhood.
It's true that when I started out, I was more a fan of attacking players and one in particular: the Brazilian Ronaldo, Ronaldo Luis Nazario de Lima. Another of my idols was Claudio Caniggia, an Argentinian forward with long hair, who I liked a lot. It's because of him that I started to grow my hair long!
I do seem to have a lot of family secrets in my novels. I guess I'm one of those writers who is often writing about the same sort of themes, but taking different angles on them.
A garden is a result of an arrangement of natural materials according to aesthetic laws; interwoven throughout are the artist's outlook on life, his past experiences, his affections, his attempts, his mistakes and his successes.
I could vanish the silk better than Ben Vereen - that was for sure. So I think maybe they said, "Okay, maybe he has something to offer." Years pass and I get a bit of a career, and Ben Vereen ends up hosting one of my specials where I walked through the Great Wall of China. Things came full circle in kind of an ironic way, when you have that honor of people that have influenced you so much host your show. It's a huge experience in your life.
When I was around 12, my heroes were Cindy Sherman and Bob Dylan and Samuel Westing from the kids' novel 'The Westing Game'.
I gravitated to Judy Blume early on. 'Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing' was my favorite, with a realistic and relatable protagonist in Peter Hatcher. When I reached the fourth grade, I made the leap to science fiction and never looked back.
The way I was educated, maybe from just inhaling something in the air back then, I grew up believing that E. B. White occupied the apex of essay writing.
I like to get suggestions on what to read. I'll look at Twitter, people I like, people I admire... I'll go and research the book, download it on my phone and read it while I'm on the road.
All of my books are based in some way on my personal experiences, or the experiences of members of my family, or the stories kids would tell me in school.
In terms of moments that pushed me toward becoming a writer... My parents, my wife, and my English teacher in the 8th grade were all hugely supportive at moments during my development as a writer that were critical, where I might have quit when things got too hard.
I would say, my influences go back a little further than some folks. I think what your influences are can certainly help you. It's like a tree with really deep roots; the firmer they're planted in the ground, the better foundation you have to build upon.
I've been inspired by people's work, but I never grew up with posters on my bedroom wall or obsessed with one person.
Growing up, I would say Wonder Woman and Nancy Drew were definite role models for me. Historically, I know Amelia Earhart stands out for me.
