Every night, half an hour before curtain up, the bells of St. Malachy's, the Actors' Chapel on New York's 49th Street, peal the tune of 'There's No Business Like Show Business.' If you walk the streets of the theatre district before a show and see the vast, enthusiastic lines it sounds like a calling: there is certainly no place like Broadway.

Writing fiction is for me a fraught business, an occasion of daily dread for at least the first half of the novel, and sometimes all the way through. The work process is totally different from writing nonfiction. You have to sit down every day and make it up.

I was a fairly good amateur musician, and I was an average professional. But the one thing I saw was that the big band business was fading.

I mean, I'm in the business of storytelling, not message making.

Well, you can't trust most people in this game, period it can be a very shady business.