No one pretends anymore that the Olympics are just about sports. It's routine to talk about what effect holding the Games in this or that capital will have on the host country's international reputation, how a nation's prestige can be raised by its m...
I was born in Israel, to Canadian parents. My father immigrated in 1948, part of a wave of young men and women who came as pioneers, to fight for a Jewish homeland. Their motive was in large part a reaction to the Holocaust, and their slogan was 'Nev...
Poverty is a solved problem - all they have to do is abolish taxes and regulations which cripple those intelligent, capable, and responsible men and women and destroy their productive capacity, then stand back and watch the economy boom.
Violent crime is a solved problem - all they have to do is repeal the laws that keep those intelligent, capable, and responsible men and women from arming themselves, and violent crime evaporates like dry ice on a hot summer day.
I think it's unfortunate that there exists only one path in America to complete social legitimacy, and that is marriage. I think, for instance, that it would be far easier for Americans to elect a black president or a female president than an unmarri...
You can forgive people who do not follow you through a philosophical disquisition; but to find your wife laughing when you had tears in your eyes, or staring when you were in a fit of laughter, would go some way towards a dissolution of the marriage.
Jane Austen, who is said to be Shakespearian, never reminds us of Shakespeare, I think, in her full-dress portraits, but she does so in characters such as Miss Bates and Mrs. Allen.
I feel like there are women who are genuinely born to be mothers, and women who are born to be aunties, and women who really probably not should be allowed near children. The tragedy that happens is when any one of those women ends up in the wrong ca...
The paranormal bad boy is usually a fiercely loyal partner for the heroine. Once his sights are set on her, he doesn't notice other women, and he's utterly unconcerned with what anyone else thinks of his choice.
When I moved to Wales more than twenty years ago and began to research 'Here Be Dragons,' I was fascinated from the first by the Welsh medieval laws, by the discovery that women enjoyed a greater status in Wales than elsewhere in Europe.
If you look at my personal library, you will notice that it ranges from Henry James to Steig Larsson, from Margaret Atwood to Max Hastings. There's Jane Austen and Tom Perrotta and volumes of letters from Civil War privates. It's pretty eclectic.
You know, there was a time when childbirth was possibly the most terrifying thing you could do in your life, and you were literally looking death in the face when you went ahead with it. And so this is a kind of flashback to a time when that's what e...
Not to make him blush, but any story illustrated by Mike Mignola does things that prose alone can't accomplish. The illustrations create mood and atmosphere, drawing the reader more deeply into the story than words could do on their own.
There are times when the only access I have to the truest person that I am is when I'm alone and trying to solve a sentence. It's exciting, even when it's frustrating, even when I can't do it right.
People who say Jane or talk about Janeites revolt me. The sort that can walk with kings and not lose that common touch. 'Miss Austen to you' is what I feel inclined to say.
A simple creature unlettyrde. Julian of Norwich called herself. The most unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress. Echoed Jane Austen—four hundred years afterward.
Change often brings unimagined opportunity...If there is no struggle, there is no progress. To live in a safe cocoon- I believe that is not truly living. It is stagnation.
I knew that I was talented. I was positive about that. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was talented at, but I was ambitious enough to wait it out and see what turned up.
People would react to books by authors like James and Austen almost on a gut level. I think it was not so much the message, because the best authors do not have obvious messages. These authors were disturbing to my students because of their perspecti...
When I took over the Writers' Workshop, it was one little class and there were eight students. All of them, brilliantly untalented... I had an absolute vision after the first workshop meeting.
I always say that the characters in Jane Austen's original books are rather like zombies because they live in this bubble of immense wealth and privilege and no matter what's going on around them they have a singular purpose to maintain their rank an...
