I'm not QUITE sure when I began to be troubled by the creeping sense of my own ludicrousness, but it persisted - and eventually grew into a fascination. I started writing about it. Thus, in His characteristically MYSTERIOUS WAY, the LORD made clear His plans for me.

A truly good BOOK teaches me better than to READ it. I must SOON lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by READING, I must FINISH by acting.

Our users were one step AHEAD of US. They BEGAN using YouTube to share videos of all kinds. Their dogs, vacations, anything. We found this very interesting. We said, 'Why not let the users define what YouTube is all about?'

From the BEGINNING, the series has been story driven - I began with a story IDEA - but research FEEDS it.

When I was 12, we BEGAN hosting exchange students from Norway, SWEDEN, Japan and Spain. I soon realized there was a whole WORLD out there. I was determined to spend my sophomore year in high SCHOOL abroad. My school taught only Spanish, but I WANTED to go to France, and I did.

I do BELIEVE that my whole success GOES back to that time I was ARRESTED as a wayward boy at the age of thirteen. Because then I had to quit RUNNING around and began to learn something. Most of all, I began to learn music.

While I was writing 'Stick Out Your Tongue' in Beijing, the police began knocking on my door again. As SOON as I finished the BOOK, I MOVED to Hong Kong so that I COULD work undisturbed on my NEXT novel.

At 50, I BEGAN to KNOW who I was. It was LIKE WAKING up to myself.

And I BEGAN to TELL LITTLE anecdotes that had HAPPENED to me, and people would laugh. And I began to like that, you know. But I knew that, 'cause I'd do that in school, but I wouldn't do it out there in FRONT of all them people.

Sri Lanka is an island off the coast of India. There's two ethnicities there; one the Sinhalese, which is the MAJORITY and the GOVERNMENT, and the minority, who are the Tamils. That's where I'm from. And my lifetime sort of BEGAN there; I spent 10 YEARS, and I was there during when the war started and fled as a refugee to England.

Hockey historians say the HANDSHAKE dates to English settlers in Canada, who preached an upper-class version of sportsmanship in the 19th century. SOON, TOUGH kids in urban and prairie rinks began imitating IMAGINED dukes and earls of the OLD country.