Americans were convinced in their own minds that they were very miserable, and those who think so are so. There is nothing so easy as to persuade people that they are badly governed. Take happy and comfortable people and talk to them with the art of ...
My fondest memories were watching the Beastie Boys get prepped to come on stage. They had a lot of antics and they play a lot of basketball... then they were giving out cameras to the crowd, and performing from the bleachers. The most important thing...
One decision I made in writing 'Henry and Clara' was that I would keep Lincoln's appearances and any dialogue by him to an absolute minimum, because I think readers don't quite believe it when novelists have Lincoln walking around and saying things. ...
Oft in the stilly night, Ere Slumber's chain has bound me, Fond memory brings the light Of other days around me; The smiles, the tears, Of boyhood years, The words of love then spoken; The eyes that shown Now dimmed and gone, The cheerful hearts now ...
The fantasy that appeals most to people is the kind that's rooted thoroughly in somebody looking around a corner and thinking, 'What if I wandered into this writer's people here?' If you've done your job and made your people and your settings well en...
I've had jobs that allow me the flexibility to achieve work-life balance, to be there when one of the kids sinks a jump shot or for the parent-teacher meetings. I can move tasks around. If I don't get something done at the office at 4:30 in the after...
What is first seen as a loss is now seen as a gain. For he finds solitude, not in far off, quite places; he creates it out of himself, spreads it around him, wherever he may be, because he loves it and slowly he ripens in this tranquility. For the in...
Fiction cannot recite the numbing numbers, but it can be that witness, that memory. A storyteller can attempt to tell the human tale, can make a galaxy out of the chaos, can point to the fact that some people survived even as most people died. And ca...
What I love is how seamless everything is. You walk throw a forest and come out in a village; and there’s no difference, no division. You aren’t in nature one minute and in civilization the next. The houses are made out of mud and stone and wood,...
I think grief and fear are going to come to him suddenly. They'll be undiluted and words won't work. We're all going to get hit and won't know how to hit back. I wish I knew the answers, how to help myself and the people who will hurt all around me.
As I've traveled around the country, it has surprised me how many times I've heard people in small businesses use that word 'saved.' I believe many small businesses would not have had access to credit and would not have survived without the $50 billi...
My grandfather milked several cows twice a day and supplied the neighbours with dairy products. He liked to go visiting around the county on Saturdays, and he also enjoyed the neighbours when they came by once a week with their empty milk jars. He wa...
Everyone is living for everyone else now. They're doing stuff so they can tell other people about it. I don't get all that social media stuff, I've always got other things I want to do - odd jobs around the house. No one wants to hear about that.
When it comes to racial issues, I'm very passionate about young girls just loving who they are in their own skin. Because I remember going to an all-white school and being the only black girl in an all-white school, think - looking around me, thinkin...
Things are never as they seem. A person. A Mark. A statement. They are always deeper than we perceive, like walking in the ocean and suddenly dipping under the surface because the bottom has disappeared beneath your feet. The water appears shallow un...
I say, "You a kind girl," and she nod, repeat it back to me. But before I can do another one, she get up and chase that poor dog around the yard and laugh and that's when I get to wondering, what would happen if I told her she something good, ever da...
Generally speaking, rural drivers are a much better behaved species than city drivers. I'm not sure whether they're intrinsically this way, or there are just fewer opportunities for them to do behave badly. You can't go around running red lights if t...
I've said it before, history repeats itself for those who don't learn from the past. Can we please learn from all this? Please? Or is everyone waiting for yet another savior to come along and charm them Hollywood style if freedom is still around for ...
When I first was trying to play the clubs around Houston to start playing my own songs, songwriters like Eric Taylor and Vince Bell and Townes Van Zandt and Don Sanders were just really encouraging to me and would let me sit in with them during their...
The river is now. This moment. This breath between us. The space between your heartbeats. The moment before you blink. The instant a thought flashes through your mind. It is everything that is around us. Life. Energy. Flowing, endlessly flowing, carr...
Dalí painted melting clocks. I suppose if he'd asked around first, quizzed people if they wanted to see a picture of a melting clock, the answer might have been something obvious, like 'Clocks don't melt!' But, lucky for us, Salvador didn't care wha...
