The literature [Nobel] laureate of this year has said that an author can do anything as long as his readers believe him. A scientist cannot do anything that is not checked and rechecked by scientists of this network before it is accepted.
In college I studied '60s and '70s radicalism, student activism, forms of political violence, groups like the Weathermen, the Black Panthers, the Symbionese Liberation Army, the New Left.
Occasionally when I'm procrastinating writing, I'll while away the hours on iTunes. You can just keep going forever and find these bands you'd never normally hear of.
When I'm creating characters, I definitely think of theme songs. Writing for me is very visual, so I sometimes think of it in terms of a movie with a soundtrack, and try to transfer that to words.
Sufferers of depression have 'episodes' the same way those who suffer from multiple sclerosis do. It comes, wipes the floor with you, and then somehow returns you to the world. But it comes back.
The reason so many intelligent and creative people suffer from depression is that when you take the risk of being fully conscious, you open Pandora's box, and you can't close it again.
I'd fully taken the road many people start on, but most abandon: common sense had given me a miss, and I'd become an artist.
It might take an act of God to convince some Americans that parts of their government are corrupt, but at the same time, you cannot, under any circumstances, persuade an Iranian that his government is not corrupt!
If you know anything about James Whitcomb Riley, you know that Little Orphan Annie is one of the most fantastic characters who ever lived in America before Charlie Chaplin.
So this was the big secret historians keep to themselves: historical research is wildly seductive and fun. There's a thrill in the process of digging, then piecing together details like a puzzle.
You can't imagine how hard I am on myself. Nothing pummels me like my own doubts, the feeling of how far I still have to go.
Then he almost but didn't say the two sentence he'd been meaning to say for years: part of me is made of glass, and also, I love you
I often keep my eyes open for bodies. I do. Ever since I was a kid. I think I read too many 'Nancy Drew' books.
I'm usually too shy to write on planes because I assume that everyone on board is as nosy as I am and will look over my shoulder and read what I'm writing.
When we really start searching for the truth in stories, we can find it everywhere, not just in sincere confessions but in the deliberate lies and imagined possibilities, the magic and fantasy, and all the other unreal elements that go into the conco...
I've studied pathological liars, and anything they say, they believe, and that's one of the reasons they're so convincing, because they have no connection with the truth. It's a dead issue. It's like they're color-blind to the truth. So anything that...
When I was married to an abuser, he'd tell me he wouldn't have to get so angry if only I'd be less demanding, more supportive, more understanding. I hid the truth from everyone, especially myself.
A lot of journalism wants to have what they call objectivity without them having a commitment to pursuing the truth, but that doesn't work. Objectivity requires belief in and a commitment toward pursuing the truth - having an object outside of our pe...
We wanted to see this country win the war just as much as those advisors did. We felt we would help to do that by reporting the truth. And so there was the moral outrage over this general and the ambassador in Saigon who kept denying the truth we wou...
Studios will tell you that they can't turn a profit on female-driven entertainment. Which is like the Gap saying no one is buying clothes anymore. No. No one is buying your clothes.
I think something that really shocked me as a nanny were parents who sort of assumed the worst from the get-go. People who didn't accept the benefit of the doubt.
