If I'd had a great level of success early on, who knows how I would have responded. I might have been a complete jerk.
It is so impossible to predict how much influence what you write will have, and what sorts of anxieties and imaginaries it will tap into.
Violence, even well intentioned, always rebounds upon oneself.
To be misunderstood can be the writer's punishment for having disturbed the reader's peace. The greater the disturbance, the greater the possibility of misunderstanding.
But whoever gives birth to useless children, what would you say of him except that he has bred sorrows for himself, and furnishes laughter for his enemies.
It's amazing how people can surprise you.
There is some mysterious thing that goes on whereby, in the process of playing Shakespeare continuously, actors are surprised by the way the language actually acts on them.
President Lyndon Johnson was very, very unpredictable. We never knew for sure what he is going to do next, and he preferred to have it that way; if he could do something as a complete surprise, that was his preference.
The negative reactions to 'The Number of the Beast' were strange. When we wrote it, we never expected anything like that.
The thing you have to be prepared for is that other people don't always dream your dream.
You never know what emotions will emerge. They can come on suddenly, when you least expect them.
It never really occurs to me that I'm doing cringe comedy. It's something that people tell me afterwards, and I say, 'Again? Really? I never set out with that intention.'
Fame is always a bit crazy. You spend so long banging on the door trying to get in that when it suddenly opens, it's a very strange feeling.
I think it's a mistake to try and overthink how you are going to be received, because that assumes that you are going to be received in the first place.
I think the great thing about characters is the ways that they can be surprising. I mean, sometimes you think you've got a lock on a personality, even just in life, and then they'll shock you by their behavior.
Sometimes I make certain assumptions but find they're not immediately obvious to my players.
Working with kids can be tricky because they can be pretty unpredictable.
Sometimes when you're creating something, it takes on a life of its own, and you can be surprised at how sad or dramatic it might get.
I didn't expect to be afraid of RuPaul. But I was.
I took 'P.S. I Love You' thinking it was going to be a little funny, and I ended up crying every day on that film.
A well-written character is one where you don't know in which direction it's going; the character could spring a surprise any moment.
