I think that every so-called history book and film biography should be prefaced by the statement that what follows is the author's rendition of events and circumstances.
President Obama is perhaps the most ideologically-motivated president in American history. But according to the ultimate authority, Barack Obama, he's a mere pragmatist.
A key goal for an author of history is to persuade his or her readers to forget what they know and to relive the world as it unfolded for characters of the time - with outcomes uncertain.
Authors are ordinary people who usually start to live apart, in the imagination, because they don't fit in with normal, healthy people.
There are millions of kids who, naturally, if we could only remember how it is - you know, you resent authority, you are impatient for change, you want to fix things up.
There are several reasons why Russians view the oppressive state positively. First, in the Russian Orthodox religion, there is an understanding of authority as something sent by God.
I don't doubt that God can bring good out of tragedies, but the Bible is clear that God is not the author of evil!
To write what is worth publishing, to find honest people to publish it, and get sensible people to read it, are the three great difficulties in being an author.
Being a leader doesn't mean you created something or you did something great in the past or some other person has given you any kind of authority.
The thing I respond to the most is just great writing, interesting characters. I like to think that there is something fun about playing a character that has a lot of authority in her own life.
He makes a great mistake... who supposes that authority is firmer or better established when it is founded by force than that which is welded by affection.
The authority of depression is horrifying. I felt like my brain was busted and that I could never feel good again. I really thought that I was never gonna heal.
Even the crudest, most derivative novel is an expression of the author's hopes and fears and ideas about good and evil.
So great moreover is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it; no, not even for the general good of the whole community.
The first pork-barrel bill that crosses my desk, I'm going to veto it and make the authors of those pork-barrel items famous all over America.
Why should any man have power over any other man's faith, seeing Christ Himself is the author of it?
Theology made no provision for evolution. The biblical authors had missed the most important revelation of all! Could it be that they were not really privy to the thoughts of God?
The Homeland Security department doesn't have tasking authority in the intelligence community. They can ask for stuff, but they can't direct anything except inside their bureau.
Knowledge is that possession that no misfortune can destroy, no authority can revoke, and no enemy can control. This makes knowledge the greatest of all freedoms.
Life is the most versatile thing under the sun; and in the pursuit of life and character the author who works in a groove works in blinkers.
Publishers, editors, agents all have one thing in common, aside from their love of cocktail parties. It's an incredible taste and an ability to find and nurture authors.
