I don't take notes. I don't have any notebooks. I keep on trying to do that because it seems like a very writerly thing to do, but my mind doesn't work that way. I tend to get the idea for a novel in a big splash.
I am a bit of a fundamentalist when it comes to black women's hair. Hair is hair - yet also about larger questions: self-acceptance, insecurity and what the world tells you is beautiful. For many black women, the idea of wearing their hair naturally ...
There are so many images pushed at women and so many ideas of what you're supposed to be. I think there's too much of this superwoman, this woman with a bottom like two billiard balls. There's no real celebration of just being a person.
Much-derided chick lit, chick flicks, and chick magazines have left ambitious women in a bind. Why is it that I, a young woman, can read 'GQ,' enjoy 'Fight Club,' and subscribe to 'Thrillist,' while the idea of a guy doing the same with 'Glamour,' '2...
Increasingly committed to human studies, I sought to collect several immature human oocytes from pieces of excised ovarian tissue, mature and fertilize them in vitro and transfer the resulting embryos into infertile women to help them conceive. Some ...
I grew up with that completely fictive idea of motherhood, where the mother never strayed from the kitchen. All the women in my books are very afraid that if they do anything with their minds they won't be complete women. I don't think my daughters' ...
A novel can be set in motion by an incident, a character, a location, a mood - by anything at all. Sometimes the stimulus can be an idea, which will rapidly clothe itself in character and incident. 'Foreign Bodies' came about through the contemplatio...
The idea that the rest of the world was somehow being held hostage by the Arab-Israeli conflict once had a minimal basis in reality. In the first 20 years of Israel's existence, every Arab country was in an active state of war with the Jewish state.
I think it's very uncomfortable for people to talk to children about war, and so they don't because it's easier not to. But then you have young people at eighteen who are enlisting in the army, and they really don't have the slightest idea what they'...
In 'The Hunger Games,' in most people's idea, in terms of rebellion or a civil-war situation, that would meet the criteria for a necessary war. These people are oppressed, their children are being taken off and put in gladiator games. They're impover...
Once Seung Sahn Soen-sa and a student of his attended a talk at a Zen center in California. The Dharma teacher spoke about Bodhidharma. After the talk, someone asked him "What's the difference between Bodhidharma's sitting in Sorim for nine years and...
There is going to come a time when we have to accept who we are without the assistance of religion. That will be the dawn of true faith. We leave the big decisions to invisible consultants and pray we get the answers we are looking for. The late grea...
A God who could make good children as easily a bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels ...
Most people, when directly confronted by evidence that they are wrong, do not change their point of view or course of action but justify it even more tenaciously. Even irrefutable evidence is rarely enough to pierce the mental armor of self-justifica...
It sounded old. Deserve. Old and tired and beaten to death. Deserve. Now it seemed to him that he was always saying or thinking that he didn't deserve some bad luck, or some bad treatment from others. He'd told Guitar that he didn't 'deserve' his fam...
Bad lovers face to face in the morning Shy apologies and polite regrets Slow dances that left no warning of Outraged glances and indiscreet yawning Good manners and bad breath get you nowhere Even presidents have newspaper lovers Ministers go crawlin...
Adam Trask: [Adam gives Cal the bible to read] Start at the fifth verse. Verse 5. Cal Trask: [Cal begins to read... ] "I acknowledge my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord and thou f...
Tuco: What about our parents? Father Pablo Ramirez: Only now do you think of them? To begin after nine years... Tuco: [startled] Nine years? [tries to laugh it off] Tuco: So it's nine years. Nine years! Father Pablo Ramirez: Our mother has been dead ...
[White approaches Loew in the bathroom, after he refused to answer Exley's questions] Ellis Loew: Unless you came in here to wipe my ass, I believe we're through. [White looks at him, silently] Ellis Loew: Come on, don't try this "Good Cop-Bad Cop" c...
[Hunt enters Lauda's garage and sees the extent of the burn injuries to his head] Niki Lauda: It's that bad, huh? James Hunt: [Shrugs] No. Niki Lauda: In hospital, I asked them straight, no bullshit, how bad my appearance would be. They said in time,...
Chloë: There's never been a classic movie made in Bruges until now. Ray: Of course there hasn't. It's a shithole. Chloë: Bruges is my home town, Ray. Ray: Well, it's still a shithole. Chloë: It's not a shithole! Ray: What? Even midgets have to tak...
