I lived through a classic publishing story. My editor was fired a month before the book came out. The editor who took it over already had a full plate. It was never advertised. We didn't get reviewed in any major outlets.
As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both before and after.
Coincidentally, a good age for a Japanese girl is younger than twenty five, because that's when she turns into a 'Christmas Cake'. Christmas cakes, as everyone knows, are desirable before the twenty fifth but afterward quickly become stale and are pu...
I've been in the studio when you go through a track and you run down a track and you know even before the singer starts singing, you know the track is swinging... you know you have a multimillion-seller hit - and what you're working on suddenly has m...
Naming is nice. It took me days before I was able to speak a name for my first child (what if people did not like it?), and I suspect we gave her a secret, second name as well, to keep her safe.
David Fincher is a longtime friend. As a director, my wife had worked with him as a makeup artist when he would do Madonna videos years before, and his child and my oldest child were in preschool together, so we're kind of dad-friends through that, t...
I usually get up not before 9. I have a huge library - I'm a big fan of Scandinavian crime fiction - so I'll usually take a book and go off to one of my favorite bistros for a cappuccino or espresso or maybe I'll have some lovely smoked salmon for br...
Sister Maria Martinez whom I believe I've mentioned before has been giving me cooking classes. Today I learned how to bake mean banana bread. The secret apparently is half a cup of dark rum.
I usually plan to read a book for a half-hour before bed, but then I end up staying awake until 3 A.M. to finish it. Fortunately, my dog doesn't mind when I keep the bedside lamp on.
Before she can stop herself, she thinks about desire, how it lives within you and yet is separate, surfacing when it chooses, without permission, in the harsh afternoon light, at the moment when you least expect to find it.
All of us desire a better state of society. But society cannot become better before two great tasks are performed.Unless peace can be firmly established and the prevailing obsession with money and power profoundly modified, there is no hope of any de...
Before we even consider expanding Medicare, or another program based on its rates, we must reform our Medicare payment system so that it rewards value, not volume, and doesn't disadvantage states like Minnesota that provide high-quality care in an ef...
Earth should suspect a man who has no tears of compassion and eject into the outer space until he learns humility. Outer space and death might be of the same origin, where one chances upon egolessness just before lifelessness. Earth only asks for ego...
Life is very tough and fragile at the same time, it never backs down or surrenders, but will break open to reveal its beauty and ugliness. As a evening primrose that blooms in the flooding moonlight, just before being trampled upon underfoot by the f...
Death moved in the night, in search for blood, and when it found Life, it passed on by, like a cloud that moves by the face of the moon. When he found those dead without the red, he took the life before them born first, and the mourning emptied itsel...
I'm at the gym at 6, so I'm usually in my office by 7:15. And I try to not schedule a lot of meetings before 8. So I've got that first hour to get myself organized for the day and to make sure that I've structured what I want to do.
Alp Arslan: "What would you do if I was brought before you as a prisoner?" Romanos: "Perhaps I'd kill you, or exhibit you in the streets of Constantinople." Alp Arslan: "My punishment is far heavier. I forgive you, and set you free.
Let God grow in you. Hear his voice in your need. Let Jesus resurrect you right now, in this life, even before you’re done dying. Let him put your spirit back in your hungry body.
Each time, before you intercede, be quiet first, and worship God in His glory. Think of what He can do, and how He delights to hear the prayers of His redeemed people. Think of your place and privilege in Christ, and expect great things!
Writing a novel is an act of self-annihilation as much as self-discovery. You can kill whole appetites and flood whole depths while plumbing them, but if you are serious about it you also get to put something into the world that wasn't quite there be...
Before 'Wings' came out, I told a few people that at the end of book one, readers should think Laurel made the right choice. Then, at the end of 'Spells,' they should understand why Laurel made the choice she did.
