As Barbara Streisand discovered, adopting a militaristic posture against a tech-savvy mob of civil libertarians is not going to be of much help: Many of them run their own servers and blogs - and have thousands of friends on their social networks - s...
If I'm walking down the riverbank, and a man is drowning, even if I don't know how to swim very well, I feel this urge that the right thing to do is to try to save that person. Evolution would tell me exactly the opposite: preserve your DNA. Who care...
The brain is the most complicated organ in the universe. We have learned a lot about other human organs. We know how the heart pumps and how the kidney does what it does. To a certain degree, we have read the letters of the human genome. But the brai...
To get our universe, with all of its potential for complexities or any kind of potential for any kind of life-form, everything has to be precisely defined on this knife edge of improbability…. [Y]ou have to see the hands of a creator who set the pa...
When I was 11 years old, my parents wanted me to do something besides get in trouble. So they enrolled me in sailing classes at the Sea Shell Association in Santa Barbara, Calif. From the moment I climbed into that 8-foot dinghy in 1952, I knew insti...
Barbara Covett: When I was young I had such a vision of myself. I dreamed I'd be someone to be reckoned with, you know, in the world. But one learns one's scale. I've such a dread of ending my days alone. But recently, I've allowed myself to think th...
[Sheba is going to see her son perform in his school play, but Barbara demands that she must instead go with her to the vet to see her cat put down] Richard Hart: My condolences! Poor, poor, pussy! Now can I have my wife back, please?
[Sheba has just admitted to her affair with Steven] Barbara Covett: [voiceover] And then I realised my fury had blinded me. There was a magnificent opportunity here. With stealth, I might secure the prize long-term, forever in my debt. I could gain e...
I think that issues of gender have been discussed widely at Harvard. But I think I was chosen clearly on the merits, and I wish to operate as president on the merits. I think, on one level, we might say that I can affirm that women have the aptitude ...
Most of the writers I know work every day, in obscurity and close to poverty, trying to say one thing well and true. Day in, day out, they labor to find their voice, to learn their trade, to understand nuance and pace. And then, facing a sea of rejec...
I challenged God. I said, 'God, I know that I'm a sinner. I know that I won't probably have peace until You're in my heart. But I will not let You in my heart until You answer me, why? Why did you take my arms and legs? Why didn't You give me what ev...
Richard: It's this Sunday? Why can't Jeff and Cindy take her? Sheryl: They have some equestrian thing in Santa Barbara. Richard: You know, they do that horse shit every-single-weekend. Sheryl: Well, it's the nationals. They're taking both horses, so ...
Charlie Kaufman: But, so anyway, I was also wondering, I'm going up to Santa Barbara this Saturday, for an orchid show, and I, and I... Alice the Waitress: Oh. Charlie Kaufman: I'm sorry. Alice the Waitress: Well... Charlie Kaufman: I apologise. I'm ...
There's one Baldessari work I genuinely love and would like to own, maybe because of my Midwestern roots and love of driving alone. 'The backs of all the trucks passed while driving from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara, California, Sunday, 20 January 19...
I read as if time were running out, because technically it is. As I grow older I find I'm increasingly impatient with mediocre entertainments; I want books that will take my breath away and realign my vision - Barbara Kingsolver
Adam: You can see us without the sheets? Lydia: Of course I can see you. Adam: Well, how is it you see us and nobody else can? Lydia: Well, I've read through that handbook for the recently deceased. It says: 'live people ignore the strange and unusua...
Barbara Covett: People like Sheba think they know what it is to be lonely. But of the drip, drip of the long-haul, no-end-in-sight solitude, they know nothing. What it's like to construct an entire weekend around a visit to the launderette. Or to be ...
[about the relationship between Steven and Sheba] Barbara Covett: Well, that's when you should've stopped it. Sheba Hart: I did! I told him I wouldn't teach him any more. But he refused to accept it, he just kept coming back. It began to feel like ou...
Barbara: Hello Pickle! It's me, mum. Dad said he saw you in town today and mentioned that you might be visiting tomorrow, which would be lovely. Will you be bringing Elizabeth with you this time? Only we can't wait to meet her finally and also um... ...
Steve McCroskey: [talking to Rex Kramer] Ease off, Rex. He hasn't flown for years; it's not his fault. It could happen to any pilot. Johnny: It happened to Barbara Stanwyck. Steve McCroskey: Can't push him too hard; he might break. You gotta remember...
Juno: [as Adam and Barbara come back to the afterlife] You two have really screwed up! I received word that you allowed yourselves to be photographed, and you let Betelgeuse out and didn't put him back, and you let Otho get hold of the handbook! Adam...
