I have no personal experience in the military. All I know about it is what I've seen in movies and read in books and watched on television. My knowledge is probably no more or no less than the average person's. 'A Brief Encounter with the Enemy' was ...
According to the U.N., more than 2.7 billion people will face severe water shortages by 2025. Many social scientists predict that the next big wars will be over water. Nevertheless, the average American family blissfully consumes 300 gallons a day, w...
I used to be a classic workaholic, and after seeing how little work and career really mean when you reach the end of your life, I put a new emphasis on things I believe count more. These things include: family, friends, being part of a community, and...
The contrasts between what is spent today to educate a child in the poorest New York City neighborhoods, where teacher salaries are often even lower than the city averages, and spending levels in the wealthiest suburban areas are daunting challenges ...
When I went to live in South Africa, I immediately began to understand what went wrong. Because here was a place supposed to be under apartheid - I arrived there in 1991 - but here a black person had more say and had more influence over his white gov...
I have been working since I was 20, and I'm 38. I actually once averaged out what I had made over my professional life. I think I could have made that much as a waiter or an insurance salesman. You know, I spent so many years in my 20's making $10,00...
I have explained many times that I am, by Profession, a Gambler -- not some jock-sniffing nerd or a hired human squawk-box with the brain of a one-cell animal. No. That would be your average career sportswriter -- and, more specifically, a full-time ...
I grew up below the poverty line; I didn't have as much as other people did. I think it made me stronger as a person, it built my character. Now I have a 4.0 grade point average and I want to go to college, and just become a better person.
The average GOP presidential vote in these last five elections was 44.5 percent. In the last three, it was 48.1 percent. Give Romney an extra point for voter disillusionment with Obama, and a half-point for being better financed than his predecessors...
Although professors regard improving critical thinking as the most important goal of college, tests reveal that seniors who began their studies with average critical thinking skills have progressed only from the 50th percentile of entering freshmen t...
The freedom of patient speech is necessary if the doctor is to get clues about the medical enigma before him. If the patient is inhibited, or cut off prematurely, or constrained into one path of discussion, then the doctor may not be told something v...
I go out and take oysters, clams and mussels every 2 weeks or so during late fall, winter and early spring. I particularly like to go out when there is a below-average ebb tide because that exposes clamming grounds and oysters that are usually under ...
So far, I haven't met anyone, and with an average fifteen-hour workday schedule, I hardly think it's probable... For the sake of my making my point, however, let's stretch our imagination and believe that the damn girl does exist. When would we go th...
In 1962, when I was 19, I visited India. With introductions from people involved in the U.S. civil rights movement, I was able to visit with several of the leading Gandhians there. The hundred-to-one difference in average per capita income between Am...
Stanley Goodspeed: You enjoying this? John Mason: Well, it's certainly more enjoyable than my average day... reading philosophy, avoiding gang rape in the washrooms... though, it's less of a problem these days. Maybe I'm losing my sex appeal.
Gregory: I must say, I don't believe I belong here with these rogues. I transferred from Yardale where I had a 4.0 grade point average. Cartman: You're a fucking faggot, dude.
Police/gangster films always have a huge following and huge audience because of the power, glamour, and certain fantasy aspect they have to them. When people watch movies, they like to fantasize being in a surreal world, and sometimes a criminal worl...
I think it is immensely difficult to get the U.S. interested in non-U.S. topics. I don't think this is because the average American reader is disinterested, but more because of publishers playing it safe: if a thriller based in L.A. is a sure winner,...
You always draw from your roots. I'm influenced by everything I hear and see, and that includes music today, but obviously I go back to my early influences: Stevie Wonder, Parliament, Earth, Wind & Fire, Ohio Players, Average White Band. Those kind o...
All the years I coached, we sent a card to every professor for each kid I had, and I was able to keep track on a daily basis who cut class or who was dropping a grade average. What I did was bring that kid in at 5:00 in the morning, and he would run ...
George: The official toxicity limit for humans is between one and one and half grams of cocaine depending on body weight. I was averaging five grams a day, maybe more. I snorted ten grams in ten minutes once. I guess I had a high tolerance.
