If you go out and see a lot of movies in a given year, it's really hard to come up with a top ten, because you saw a lot of stuff that you liked. A top 20 is easier. You probably get one masterpiece a year, and I don't think you should expect more than one masterpiece a year, except in a really great year.
Last year, New York got $200 million. This year, we're going to give them $124 million under this particular program. But last year was an artificially elevated number to make up from the very low grant the year before.
I feel that this is my first year, that next year is an election year, that the third year is the mid point, and that the fourth year is the last chance I'll have to make a record since the last two years; I'll be a candidate again. Everything I do in those last two years will be posturing for the election. But right now I don't have to do that.
I didn't have a list of things I should do this year, next year, find a good novel, sign two stars and make a deal - because I think cinema should come from cinema. I never adapted anything. Beautiful books are beautiful books, that's it. I don't know why we should transform them.
All my career I have done that, worked with talents, improving 19-year-olds, 20-year-olds, 17-year-olds, 18-year-olds.
In 2004, I took a one year sabbatical to finish my second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns. At the end of that year, I was not done with my book, and had to in effect resign from work. I did. I never went back.
I went to the University of Michigan for two years, and I auditioned for 'Bring It On' during my sophomore year, so I got to finish my sophomore year, and then I joined the cast - the touring cast.
The 20-year goal is to be a film director. The 15-year goal is to win an Oscar. The five-year goal is to just keep enjoying myself.
Every year is a new year, and when you look at the turnover year to year, teams that made the playoffs last year aren't a guarantee to make the playoffs this year.
I've just finished my 20th book this past year and I'm working on my 21st book about the Middle East right now that I'll finish this year. And I get up early in the morning and when I get tired of the computer and tired of doing research, I walk 20 steps out to my woodshop and I either build furniture or paint paintings. I'm an artist too.
In today's world, it never looks good when you're suing somebody who earned $20,000 for writing a book over a period of a year or two.
Tomorrow is Now... If we act, 2015 can be a year for the history books. It can be the year that we put the world on the path to end extreme poverty; the year we place sustainability at the heart of our future; and the year that we agree that every person should be able to lead a life of dignity and opportunity.
The average 20-year-old serving us in Iraq knows more about their country's national security than the average 20-year political veteran serving in the Congress today.
When I wrote for myself before as an artist, I probably wrote about 15, 20 songs a year. I thought that was a lot. Then, when I first started writing for the people, I wrote, like, 65 songs in a year for two years in a row.
What I have against M.B.A.s is the assumption that you come out of a two-year program probably never having been a manager - at least for full-time younger people M.B.A. programs - and assume you are ready to manage.
I usually do one con a year as a GoH and try to make the World Fantasy Convention for business purposes. Last year I went to a worldcon for the first time in two decades. I may go again this year.