“I always wanted to be a father and thought it would be great, but it just took the right woman and the right time to make it all happen.”

The unsaid rule for living in a trailer park is: ‘If the door’s shut, don’t come a-knockin.’ But if it’s open and you’re walkin’ by, feel free to say, ‘Hello.’

I’ve got incredible support from my wife and family and people around me. I’ve got great people around me who handle anything on the outside, business-wise, who help free me up to create in my job.

Music is a really great creative tool for me, for different roles.

A coach, especially at a college level – much more at a college or high school level, than at a pro level – you’re more of a teacher than an actual coach.

You don’t look them in the eye and stop. Half the time, you’re listening, half the time, you are ignoring them.

Even as a kid, I wore J.C. Penney plain-pocket jeans because they were plain pockets.

The male is always the pawn in a romantic comedy. Come together, break up, go chase her, get her, roll credits. That’s what happens in all of them.

What the heck is true love? I remember feeling, back when I was 12 and ‘going’ with this girl, ‘Is this true love?’

I like to be able to wear something that is appropriate for wherever the day takes me: to work, on a hike and then out to dinner. I like to take the formality out of the day’s schedule and be ready for any off-road detour.

I’m a football fan, a sports fan, a fan of competition.

There are a whole bunch of roles where people say, ‘Oh, you’re playing yourself.’ I guess it’s kind of a compliment.

Absolutely not. I have no problem with commitment. In fact, I love having someone in my life.

I was raised on, ‘You go get a nine-to-five job, earn your pay and work your way up.’

Sure, I can get a little bit jealous. The good part about jealousy is that it comes from passion. It’s also the dangerous part and it’s an ugly emotion that hurts.

I talk to myself all the time. Just make sure you answer.

My wife and I don’t compete. We know each other’s preferences, and we work to provide those for each other. One will take over when the other is faced with something he or she dislikes. That’s what friends do.

The special virtue of freedom is not that it makes you richer and more powerful but that it gives you more time to understand what it means to be alive.

If you make a ‘Star Wars’ reference, everybody’s familiar with that. It’s a common reference that most people can relate to – ‘Bartleby, The Scrivener,’ probably not so much.

Make your life a story worth telling.

I think – the more sentences you write, the more sentences you have written, if that slightly Zen confection makes any sense.

This makes his writing very pleasing to read: João Gilberto Noll pays attention to detail, but only to certain details. And it’s never easy to foresee which details will send the narrator or the plot in an unsuspected direction.

My grandfather is the king, my Dad’s the prince,

I guess that makes me the butler.

Conforming is not cool. Embracing who you are and what makes you different is actually what’s really cool.