Remember: TV is a format, film is a format, and books are a format.

If Tom Clancy didn't write any Op-Centers, he would be $60 million less rich.

Dance stories, unlike those in opera, are usually simple.

The best seat in the house often depends on the ballet. For instance, much of the first act of 'The Nutcracker' is domestic and small scale, so it's great to sit up close. But the second act features elaborate scenery and choreography, which are better to observe from a distance.

Ballet is like any other art form in that we all start out knowing nothing about it.

Like all editors, I assume, I'm a reactor.

In 1998, Vanity Fair asked me to write a big piece for them on the 50th anniversary of the New York City Ballet. My life, to a great extent, had been spent at and with the New York City Ballet, and I decided to try it. It was very scary, writing about something I loved so much and had such strong opinions about.

I don't like writing - it's so difficult to say what you mean. It's much easier to edit other people's writing and help them say what they mean.

Writing happened to me. I didn't decide to start writing or to be a writer. I never wanted to be a writer.

With literary fiction, generally a film maker falls in love with a book. In commercial fiction, it's a producer or studio falling in love with a book they can make into a movie with worldwide appeal.

Shakespeare has always been up for grabs, and choreographers have every right to use him any way they choose.

The mystery of Christopher Wheeldon deepens. Yes, he's the most talented of the younger ballet choreographers - indeed, where's the competition? Yes, he's particularly good at nurturing dancers and identifying their essential qualities.

No agent/publisher is in a position to create across a spectrum of media and distribution what major publishers can accomplish for authors.

We all need each other in publishing to make publishing work for authors in a variety of formats now and in the future. Anyone who thinks publishers don't bring anything to the table has a very narrow view and lack of knowledge about the industry as a whole.

'Eclipse' is a concept piece, and its concept centers on 36 large light bulbs strung from above in a geometrical pattern and at different heights, some of them at times down below the dancers' chest level.

Charles Dickens left us fifteen novels, and in an ideal world, everyone would read all of them.

There is no consolation for anyone in the Scott Peterson story, and no final illumination.

Dickens was born in 1812 and died in 1870, having produced fifteen novels, many of which can confidently be called great, as well as having accomplished outstanding work in activities into which his insatiable need to expend his vast energies - to achieve, to prevail - carried him: journalism, editing, acting, social reform.

The first movement ballerina should be a paradigm of strength and authority.

One of the eternal mysteries of ballet is how untalented choreographers find backers for their work, and then find good dancers to perform in it. Is it irresistible charm? Chutzpah? Pure determination? Blackmail? Or are so many supposedly knowledgeable people just plain blind?

Diana Vishneva is not only a magnificent dancer but a magnificent actress - no one works harder or understands more.

As an editor, I have to be tactful, of course.

'Ocean's Kingdom' is a fairy story with no subtext, no resonance - it's not about anything except its water-logged plot.

It's a crapshoot, publishing.