Catch-22's first readers were largely of the generation that went through World War II. For them, it provided a startlingly fresh take, a much-needed, much-delayed laugh at the terror and madness they endured.

I'm accused of, and perhaps rightly so, of not being mean enough. I've been taken to task in many a book review; a good satirist has to, you know, has to kill.

The ideological distance between Jim Webb and Bertrand Russell can be measured in light years. An author who reaches both of them exerts something like universal appeal.

It's odd to think of yourself as an orphan at 55.

In public relations, you live with the reality that not every disaster can be made to look like a misunderstood triumph.

As you know, divorce is still not allowed in the Catholic Church. But here insert a large 'however' - she is liberal in the granting of annulments.

We live - on a spinning planet in a world of spin.

I'm a Republican, but I find Nancy Pelosi very attractive.

A new idea is like carbonated liquid in a bottle. You just sort of shake it until the cork pops, then you write and write.

I love Oscar Wilde, still the wittiest writer of anyone, dead or living.

My dad's one true quest in life was for the Platonic ideal of peanut butter. And I remember one day he announced, with a look of utter transfiguration on his face, that he had found paradise on Earth in a jar with a yellow cap. And it was called Red Wing.

When you're an adolescent, you suddenly wake up one morning and your body is an enemy. There are hormonal changes, physical changes, emotional changes. People are saying to you, 'Now you have to make the decisions that define the rest of your life.' The X-Men takes those elements and pushes them one giant step farther.

I always had a sense of where I was going with 'Dark Phoenix.' Jean had the greatest power imaginable... and, how's she going to deal with that?

One of the fun things in the old days about writing with Frank Miller was that every issue of 'Daredevil' was a challenge to every issue of 'X-Men.'

The interesting thing I realized writing the 'X-Men' is I always had a sense of where I was going.

For me, writing the 'X-Men' was easy - is easy. I know these people, they're my friends.

I find now I'm reading a lot more nonfiction, simply because every time I read fiction, I think I can write it better. But every time I read nonfiction, I learn things.

The nice thing about genetics is, I can see my kids doing what I used to do, which is inhaling books like breathing.

I'd love to do writing for Hollywood.

My desire as a storyteller is to always catch the readers off guard; to give them something they aren't expecting, and take them in a direction that is satisfying in the here and non.

The cool thing about comic books and prose is that if a reader gets confused on page 8, they can backtrack. With films, you sit down in a seat and once the projector starts going you're stuck for the next two hours. There are no do-overs, rewinding or starting again.

What you want to do in a film is encapsulate the characters and the stories into one focused, coherent two-hour time block, and that's sometimes hard to do especially when you have a group as varied and distinctive as the 'X-Men' are.

In terms of the 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' movie, Bryan Singer has been a part of the X-Men family from the first movie. He knows about the comics canon and how it relates to his work as a filmmaker. He's more well versed in the canon than most, as are the people that are working with him.

Creative life should be more than preaching to the converted, more than going for a core audience of 100,000 people. It should be taking risks, challenging the readership and having enough faith in one's own talent and craft to take readers on that ride.