Owen King

“I'd love to be able to draw or play guitar or dance. All three at the same time - that's the talent for me.”

“Just because it's physically impossible for Steve Buscemi to be in every movie doesn't mean he's not capable of dramatically improving them all.”

“I give my work to my wife first to read. Then, I try to find new people who haven't read my work before, to get a new perspective.”

“I think the model that I look at is someone like Jakob Dylan, whose dad is obviously every bit if not more famous than mine. He's a guy who sought to build a career on his own, doing something that's a little bit different than what his father does.”

“I wasn't good at the sciences; I wasn't a good enough athlete. The only thing I could do was mow lawns. So I thought that writing or teaching was what I wanted to do.”

“Although it's depressing to admit this, more than a handful of post-'Donnie Brasco' Al Pacino roles would have been better served by Steve Buscemi.”

“It's hard for me to teach and write my own work at the same time.”

“Everyday life is pretty funny and pretty ridiculous and occasionally really great, though not all the time, and that's all part of it.”

“I grew up watching Cinemax, the late-night Cinemax of the '80s and early '90s.”

“I could write about coal miners in Northern Pennsylvania, and people would ask if I was writing about my dad.”

“I'm a very liberal person.”

“It's not easy for me as a writer to suspend my disbelief in a fantastical zone. I can do it. But it's more natural for me to write stories that are comic. Or hopefully comic.”

“I like 'Reanimator,' and I like 'Evil Dead 2.' But I really like the Corman movies from the late '60s and early '70s, and my favorite is 'The Mask of Red Death' with Vincent Price because - spoiler alert - but at the end of the movie, Vincent Price, he's the evil prince, and to kill him, his court just, like, dances at him.”

“I didn't really get serious about my own writing until I was convinced it was something that I wanted to do, that I wanted to spend that much time alone.”

“I was pretty naive about how hard it would be to get out from under the family name. Not that I'm complaining.”

“I think it's almost impossible to edit something to death. I think you can make things better almost indefinitely.”

“I went to public schools in Bangor, Maine, and had as normal a childhood as you could imagine someone could, living in an enormous red house and being the son of a millionaire best-selling writer. I mean, I actually had a strangely normal childhood despite all that.”

“I only finish probably one out of every ten things I start. I give up all the time.”

“My parents and my brother root for me.”

“My father has been a major force in the popular culture for a long, long time. He's a fascinating person.”