“For almost anyone who chooses to be a writer, since so very few writer...” — Russell Banks Quote

“For almost anyone who chooses to be a writer, since so very few writers are able to learn a living from their work that is equivalent to the living earned by the average dentist or accountant.”

“The best thing about writing programs is that it rationalized the apprenticeship of a writer.”

“The United States particularly abandoned Liberia after the end of the Cold War.”

“And out of a desire essentially to imitate what I was reading, I began to write, like a clever monkey.”

“My major allegiance has been to storytelling, not to history.”

“The 60s passed and faded and I grew older, and in 1987 bought a house in upstate New York, and it turned out that John Brown was buried down the road from my house and that he had lived there longer than anywhere else and his house was still standing.”

“I should have stayed an athlete, body well-tuned, cruising around with my accountant in a Porsche, maroon and chrome.”

“When you're writing plays, it's possible to believe you don't have any real world skill. When you're adapting, it is really all about the mechanics, so you feel closer to, I don't know, an accountant or someone who has a body of information. It's not all about temperament.”

“I mean I get loads of money, all from different sources. You give it to your accountant. They manage it. But you pay corporation tax. If you're then taking it out and spending it on yourself, you have to pay more.”

“My neighborhood was rough, but I live a great life now. I don't fight that much now. I don't look for it anyway, but if someone hits your mother, whether you're a star, an accountant, or an astronaut or anything... I mean it's your mother, so I lost my mind.”

“A lot of the younger Indian generation are either IT geniuses or doctors - the number of doctors I've seen in L.A. who are Indian is just crazy. So it is a very common thing. Or an accountant! That again is a very, very big thing.”