First and foremost, I consider myself a storyteller. And I'm endlessly fascinated with people, with what they do and why... and how they feel about it. Which means I'm interested in romance fiction. I was drawn to it, as both a reader and a writer, a...
I created the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation back in 1997 for the purpose of going in and improving the living conditions of my people on the African continent, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo where I came from. Out first mission was to go...
Peoria is such a seemingly quintessential American city, and I had always wanted to draw on that in either my fiction or in nonfiction. The Midwest is also a landscape that I have always been infatuated with, perhaps because it's the first one I can ...
Facebook was founded on February 4, 2004. On February 5, we were feeling pretty confident, even from observing the first few hours of usage. Students used it like crazy. They'd sign up then spend the next 3-4 hours on it. Then we'd go to lecture hall...
The home is the first and most effective place to learn the lessons of life: truth, honor, virtue, self control, the value of education, honest work, and the purpose and privilege of life. Nothing can take the place of home in rearing and teaching ch...
Since 1775, when the first Continental Congress called for a national day of prayer, there have been such events called for by almost every President. I saw the figures - 34 out of 44 Presidents have called for a national day of prayer. Some of those...
If there is a risk in a bank, our first question should be 'Okay, what are you in the bank going to do about that? What can you do to recapitalise yourself?'. If the bank can't do it, then we'll talk to the shareholders and the bondholders, we'll ask...
I'm a conservative first, and I believe that, if we do a better job of helping Americans understand what we're trying to do, to showcase every place in the country that our ideas are working at the state level, that that will help those at the federa...
At first I thought I was going to have to undress her, and dear gods, there was no way I could do that and not, well, think and feel the things I would. Then she grabbed the hem of her sweater and started to lift. I had to force myself from the bathr...
It can be dangerous to be right at the outset. Managers in some LCD-first companies interpreted the pivot point as an unconditional endorsement of everything they had been doing. As a result, they failed to recognize the need to rethink some details ...
From the first place of liquid darkness, within the second place of air and light, I set down the following record with its mixture of fact and truths and memories of truths and its direction toward the Third Place, where the starting point is myth.
When I first started out, being from the South and going to New York or Chicago, people kept telling me to get voice lessons and 'lose that stupid accent you got.' And I'm like, 'Well, where I come from, you have the stupid accent.'
Awful first drafts are fine—Agree with this. If you don’t finish something, you’ll never get in the game. Just quell the voice in your head that says “Are you kidding? No one is going to want to read this drivel” and keep on going. You’re...
If we want to live freely and privately in the interconnected world of the twenty-first century - and surely we do - perhaps above all we need a revival of the small-town civility of the nineteenth century. Manners, not devices: sometimes it's just b...
Over a 10-season stretch from 1967 to 1976, eight Super Bowl champions either were the Raiders or had to beat the Raiders in the playoffs. The Jets, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Baltimore Colts, Miami, the Steelers each of the first two times... we al...
My first season with Pittsburgh was 1969. We were still in the old NFL. My second year, we moved to the AFC when the leagues merged. I went to the Pro Bowl that season, and there must have been nine Raiders and nine Chiefs. I got to know all those gu...
JJ Abrams is definitely a guy that when he calls, you want to answer. He's incredibly focused. When he was shooting the pilot on 'Lost,' we'd do a take and he'd go back to his tent and be working on the first episodes of 'Lost' as well as the cliffha...
When I first met my girlfriend, Mercy Malick, she asked me if there was anything I should tell her that could put her off me if she found out later. So I told her that I was a total 'Star Wars' geek and had boxes of 'Star Wars' toys in storage.
Elizabeth Taylor taught me that if you do your hair and makeup first then take a hot bath right before you leave, it brings out your inner glow and takes away the powdery look from makeup. I do that right before every date.
One of my favorite stories is from Obama's first campaign: Michelle Obama was out there every day, collecting signatures and supervising the other people who did. If you were supposed to get 300 signatures and you only got 299, you had to face the wr...
President Obama's first term in office has been better for intentions than for actual changes in planning and policy. I do believe, and he has several things to this effect, that he would like to provide universal preschool or at least far more presc...
