I wrote the children's books, and those were wonderful tributes to my life as a daughter and a mother and just a thank-you to my parents for all the lessons in life they had passed on to me that I could pass onto my child and to other kids around the world.

Ainsley Earhardt

I only published my first novel at the age of 40. Till then, I wrote short stories.

A. B. Yehoshua

When I first wrote 'Papa Hemingway,' there were too many people still alive, and the lawyers for Random House didn't want to OK it. But now all that's been filtered away by the passage of all these people. And having the fortune of surviving, I now feel that I am the custodian of what Ernest wanted the world to know about him and these women.

A. E. Hotchner

It came about as follows: over the years when I was involved in dianetics, I wrote the beginnings of many stories. I would get an idea, and then write the beginning, and then never touch it again.

A. E. van Vogt

The past actually happened but history is only what someone wrote down.

A. Whitney Brown

The first thing I wrote was a one-act play that got accepted at a one-act play festival, and I was in it along with Nathan Lane and a couple of other very good actors.

Aaron Sorkin

When we were doing 'The West Wing,' the hardest thing about doing 'The West Wing' was being compared to yourself. You go out there and want every episode to be as good as your best episode. I wrote 88 episodes of 'The West Wing,' and when you do that, one of them is going to be your 88th best, so your 88th best better be pretty good.

Aaron Sorkin

When I wrote 'The West Wing,' the juice behind it was that in popular culture, our leaders in government are generally portrayed as Machiavellian, or as idiots. I thought, well, how about writing about a group of hyper-competent people?

Aaron Sorkin

I was around computers from birth; we had one of the first Macs, which came out shortly before I was born, and my dad ran a company that wrote computer operating systems. I don't think I have any particular technical skills; I just got a really large head start.

Aaron Swartz

I wrote in my book, 'unPlanned,' about a church that kicked me out when they found out that I worked for Planned Parenthood. I often get questioned about that, whether I still think they made the wrong decision. My answer is a resounding 'Yes.'

Abby Johnson

When India conducted nuclear tests in 1974, I wrote a letter to then-Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto from Holland and offered my services for Pakistani nuclear programme.

Abdul Qadeer Khan

I wrote my first piano piece when I was in 4th grade.

Abel Korzeniowski

I wrote a play for Miu Miu called 'The Moment Is the Present, That's Why It's Called a Gift.' Instead of doing a catwalk show, all the actors wore the clothes and performed a 20-minute play.

Abi Morgan

'Halo' I wrote with my grandpa in his nursing home. When I went to visit him, he'd often comment on my halo. But of course, I couldn't see. And he always - he had pictures of Jesus with these beautiful halos. And so I asked him if he'd write a song with me about Jesus' halo.

Abigail Washburn

My first album after 'American Idol' I did with Desmond - we paid for it together, and we literally were together working on it every day for a year and half, just writing. We wrote in New York, Nashville, L.A., Sweden - we wrote with some other amazing songwriters like Diane Warren, too.

Ace Young

I grew up - my dad, every time I was with my dad, he was always - not always, but he wrote. He's a writer. So he was always in his office writing. He made a plan and, like, a point of, 'This is my work. I'm going to do this every day for these amount of hours.' So I think that's where I got, like, a work sort of ethic.

Ad-Rock

I wrote for this sketch group called Olde English for about six years and we made a movie together, but we sort of stopped making sketches.

Adam Conover

The area we define as what Quora's good at is long-form text that's useful over time, and where you care about who wrote the text. Not that you need to be friends with them, just that they're someone trustworthy.

Adam D'Angelo

I like the guys who wrote their own stuff and were able to perform it, like Seth Rogen. He popped off so young. When he did 'The 40-Year-Old Virgin,' and he was a co-producer on the movie, I was like, 'Oh my God: that's exactly what I want to do.'

Adam DeVine

I wrote a song on the record called 'Flawed Design' and it's basically looking at that, and it was just exploring how everybody obviously has flaws. I think to embrace those flaws - enjoy them, embrace them - and actually be a real person is something that a lot of people struggle with, myself included.

Adam Gontier

For years, I believed that anything worth doing was worth doing early. In graduate school, I submitted my dissertation two years in advance. In college, I wrote my papers weeks early and finished my thesis four months before the due date. My roommates joked that I had a productive form of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Adam Grant