Amy Bloom

Whenever you see shrinks on television, they're so clearly written by patients. They're either idealized or they're demonized or they love their patients. All they ever think about is their patients.

As children, we think our mother has always been a mother, but it is just one of the roles you may have the opportunity to play. They don't define you as a human being.

I think the impulse to get to the heart of the story and to tell it well is in my genes.

Shaft was a pop culture figure along t he lines of, I guess, Dirty Harry - except that he wasn't as much of a racist. So yeah, I was always a fan.

Barack Obama is crazy sexy.

I'm a big action junkie. I grew up on the '80s action movies - the bad ones and the good ones.