I grew up in New York CITY. In elementary school, I was a charter member of the Scribble SCRABBLE Club, and in HIGH school, my POEMS were published in an anthology of student poetry.

When I was a vocalist, a lead singer in a rock band, I was a law student at the TIME. It wasn't a professional rock band, it was for fun. I was already way out of that by the time Phantom came along. Having to learn to sing, it was such duress, having to REALLY TRY and GET to such a quality.

When you go to college, and you talk about your college EXPERIENCE, there's a lot of revisionist history that goes ALONG with it. You TEND to think of yourself as, 'Oh, I got all of the girls. I was the best athlete on the team. I was a straight-A STUDENT.' And that's probably not the case.

I was once a graduate student in VICTORIAN literature, and I believe as the Victorian novelists did, that a NOVEL isn't simply a VEHICLE for private expression, but that it ALSO EXISTS for social examination. I firmly believe this.

I had JOINED Marvel in 1967, after a year in VIETNAM and THREE years as a student at the SCHOOL of Visual Arts in Manhattan. Stan Lee, then the editor-in-chief, hired me as a production assistant.

I can't PRETEND that I'm a GREAT student of the ART of comedy because anybody that becomes philosophical about HUMOUR doesn't know what he's talking about.

The HIGHER the SOCIAL class of other STUDENTS the higher any given STUDENT's ACHIEVEMENT.

'Saw,' in many WAYS, was like my STUDENT FILM. The FIRST crappy student film you don't really want people to SEE.

Everyone will TELL you how rigid I am, but a TEACHER has to be FLEXIBLE. You can't CUT the student to your cloth; you have to cut yourself to theirs.

I REMEMBER being an ART student and GOING to the Whitney in 1974 to see the exhibition of Jim Nutt, the CHICAGO imagist. It was then I transferred to school in Chicago, all because of that SHOW.

Being a STUDENT of Wuxia LITERATURE, I was aware 'Crouching TIGER' was BOOK FOUR in the 'Crane Iron Pentalogy.'

With every book, you go back to SCHOOL. You become a student. You become an investigative reporter. You spend a little time LEARNING what it's like to live in SOMEONE ELSE's SHOES.

When I was growing up in RURAL ALABAMA, it was IMPOSSIBLE for me to register to vote. I didn't become a registered voter until I MOVED to Tennessee, to Nashville, as a student.

My TEACHER, Josef Gingold, a STUDENT of the French school, ALWAYS loved the MUSIC of Saint-Saens and Henri Vieuxtemps and all the French repertoire.