I remembered what it was like: the weirdness, being the odd man out, trying to make my way around campus, and trying to figure out who my friends would be, who to steer clear of. I wrote it all down in a fanciful way - the feelings of alienation, the feelings of uncertainty, of being away from home for the first time.

I felt that, with 'Zatanna,' I had a chance to do a story about a strong, driven woman.

Jim Henson once allowed me to visit the Muppets on set and spent an entire day showing me how he and the other puppeteers performed Kermit and all the characters! After that, I was lucky enough to work with both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg on many fun animation projects and learned so much from them.

Without Wonder Woman, there would be no Black Canary; without a Superman, there would be no Flash. They all come from that.

I take inspirations from newspaper strip cartoonists who look for ways of expanding their characters' worlds once they have established the initial concept of their strips.

Mr. Freeze is motivated by different things. He doesn't really have that much of an axe to grind with Batman. Batman is an irritation and an impediment to him, not an enemy that he hates. He doesn't have the hatred that the Joker has for Batman.

I was one of those goofy kids whose year narrowed down to focus on Christmas from about September on. I guess I was like Ralphie in 'A Christmas Story,' in that I would get swept up into the anticipation of the holiday, watching the lights go up, hearing the songs in the stores, getting special Christmas issues of comics and all that.

I've always liked the Krampus character, and I've always been fascinated with him, especially the tradition that he was such a part of the holiday season in Europe, in Germany, Austria, northern Italy, various other places.

Batman doesn't use a gun. When Bruce Wayne thinks he had to resort to a street thug's level to defend himself and the girl he was rescuing, he decides he can't be Batman anymore.

One Thanksgiving weekend, I had a lost weekend at a friend's place with 'Grand Theft Auto.'

I was writing a script about the Joker menacing a regular person who had strayed into his path, and I needed to give him a gang of henchmen to work with him. The idea occurred to me, let's put in a female henchperson, because that seemed like a fun variation on the regular big thug guys.

If we made the 'Batman' games more realistic, you'd have to be Bruce Wayne for half the game, counting his money and dating supermodels.

'Boo & Hiss' has been a passion project of mine for a couple of years. I was intrigued with the idea of what would happen in a classic cartoon predator/prey relationship if the predator - in this case, a cat - got to finally do in his adversary only to have the mouse return as a ghost and bedevil the cat.

We had established Harley Quinn as an accomplice to the Joker who was also crushing on him and found herself in the middle of this weird relationship being at the beck and call of his every whim. We wanted to stretch her and make her a stronger character, so to have her leave him and go off on her own was a story I wanted to tell for a while.

There was a time I was willing to be a clown for people who I felt were the perfect person for me.

Creativity, for a lot of young people, is a coping mechanism. It's the only place they feel comfortable. It's the only time they feel like they're being heard or can make a difference, is if they can go into a room and do a drawing or go to a garage and play a song or retreat to this world.

If you have doubt about a person's humility or smarts, don't ignore it. More often than not, there is something causing that doubt.

I work with CEOs and their executive teams... and very few of these people are really indifferent about their employees or their customers.

Employees that feel known and they feel like they know why their job matters and they have a sense of measuring it stay later, do extra work, and are committed to the organization above the requirements that they have.

I've spent many a long flight talking to flight attendants, trying to understand what kind of employment experience underlies such a consistent lack of concern for customers.

Enron - although an extreme case - is hardly the only company with a hollow set of values.

Conflict is the pursuit of truth.

God bless those employees at United who somehow continue to be gracious and patient and generous with customers even while bearing the brunt of a broken company themselves.

When team members openly and passionately share their opinions about a decision, they don't wonder whether anyone is holding back. Then, when the leader has to step in and make a decision because there is no easy consensus, team members will accept that decision because they know that their ideas were heard and considered.