Well the country songs themselves are three-chord stories ballads which are mostly sad. If you are already feeling sorry for yourself when you listen to them they will take you to an even sadder place.

I would not know how I am supposed to feel about many stories if not for the fact that the TV news personalities make sad faces for sad stories and happy faces for happy stories.

In the West audiences think I am a stereotyped action star or that I always play hitmen or killers. But in Hong Kong I did a lot of comedy many dramatic films and most of all romantic roles lots of love stories. I was like a romance novel hero.

But other vampire stories? Well no I really haven't read too many and I can't say I'm crazy about romantic vampires anyway - to me the vampire is simply an evil monster.

I like to see love stories: romantic comedy or romantic drama.

I enjoy doing romantic stories. I've done a lot of them.

I confess I am a romantic. I love romance and I think it's really fun and delicious and some of my favorite films are love stories. I think that you just get a chance to fall in love with the characters so much and you get to explore their lives so deeply.

I have such a rich fantasy life I can't help it. I do make up a lot of romantic stories in my head.

I loved fairy tales when I was a kid. Grimm. The grimmer the better. I loved gruesome gothic tales and in that respect I liked Bible stories because to me they were very gothic.

My stories are about humans and how they react or fail to react or react stupidly. I'm pointing the finger at us not at the zombies. I try to respect and sympathize with the zombies as much as possible.

In all the antique religions mythology takes the place of dogma that is the sacred lore of priests and people... and these stories afford the only explanation that is offered of the precepts of religion and the prescribed rules of ritual.

All human beings have an innate need to hear and tell stories and to have a story to live by. religion whatever else it has done has provided one of the main ways of meeting this abiding need.

Think about all the great leaders. Think about Obama. Think about Clinton. Think about Nelson Mandela. Think about all the people that we know who are very successful in business in politics and religion. What are they? They tell purposeful stories. They move people to action by aiming at the heart.

Well religion has been passed down through the years by stories people tell around the campfire. Stories about God stories about love. Stories about good spirits and evil spirits.

I try to just talk about human stories and what I think about religion or teapots or whatever.

I love the idea of the teachings of Jesus Christ and the beautiful stories about it which I loved in Sunday school and I collected all the little stickers and put them in my book. But the reality is that organised religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate.

Everything Sholom Aleichem talks about in his plays and his short stories is about people family man's relationship with his God the breaking down of tradition.

I've just finished my next collection Possible Side Effects and I'm now working on a collection of holiday stories as well as a memoir about my relationship with my father.

I can sort of do what I want. Maybe I have to work harder to prove myself in some new relationship because they've heard some wacky stories about me. But at least I can get the meeting.

You know sex is actually not so original as the way people love or the stories behind each relationship which is what you remember. Sex is sex in the end.

I've received a lot of positive feedback from both the secular and Christian markets. People seem to be receiving it with open arms and hearts and are interested in the stories I want to share about my relationship with God and my faith.

I'd like to feel that an advertiser gets something extra when they advertise with us - a certain humanity that comes from upbeat and positive human interest letters and success stories.

That something extra I believe is a certain humanity that comes from upbeat and positive human interest letters and success stories. Advertisers like to be associated with those qualities.

There's a lot of peer pressure to not do positive stories out of Iraq... I think there's a sense that the administration got a pass during the hot days of war and now that the war is over it's time to even out the deck somewhat.