I have certain rules that I've established for myself that took a while post-day job to figure out. Everyone says people who freelance or are writers struggle with the structure of it. I'm not allowed to check email before a certain hour. I'm not all...
We could all spend a lifetime unraveling the knots of our childhood, but at some point you realize the knots are no longer yours. They belong to your parents, and their parents before them. The legacy is long and complicated, the damage passed on thr...
Remember, it’s always darkest just before the dawn. Never underestimate the strength of your will to live after a loss, to love after heartache, or to rise after a fall. For although your troubles may be too dense and dark right now for you to see ...
My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'blackness' than ever before. I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a ...
So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whate...
BDSM is like visiting a kinky Amusement Park. Once you pay the entry fee, you hop on an erotic roller coaster of deviant self-discovery. Although I have the threat of pain before me, I’m not even close to wanting to get off of this ride. It’s suc...
When I open them, most of the books have the smell of an earlier time leaking out between the pages - a special odor of the knowledge and emotions that for ages have been calmly resting between the covers. Breathing it in, I glance through a few page...
After getting dressed at warp speed, I actually managed to drive all the way to high school before I realized I'd forgotten my morning coffee. Mystery, intrigue, and naked dreams aside, that didn't bode well for my chances at making it through the mo...
We see that hyperactivity and reward areas are important when the bubble's rising. People getting caught up in it. We also see areas involving mentalizing, which means thinking about other people: Who's buying? Who's selling? Do they know something? ...
Do you know what you’ve done?” I asked in a bland tone. Annette gave me an inquiring look. “You’ve gotten on my last nerve.” The table went crashing into her before she could blink, and then my fist found a home in her perfectly arranged ha...
There is a tendency for humans to consciously see what they wish to see. They literally have difficulty seeing things with negative connotations while seeing with increasing ease items that are positive. For example, words that evoke anxiety, either ...
I've told my family to tell me when I start missing a beat, before I realise it myself. Everything I do is ad-lib. I don't rehearse anything. I live on my wits, and I have to be as sharp as I can be. It's inevitable with the passing of time that shar...
Doing 'All Good Things' really felt like I was acting for myself rather than anyone else. It gave me a freedom I'd never had before, or knew I had, to do whatever I want to, and to argue my opinions and not just feel like the cute girl on set or the ...
Readers tell me that my novels are filled with significant mothers. Do I realize this? Do I do it on purpose? The truth is, I don't. I think of myself as a writer of family stories. I write more often than not from a male point of view, and I usually...
I remember reading 'The Grapes of Wrath' in high school in 1983. My family had immigrated to the U.S. three years before, and I had spent the better part of the first two years learning English. John Steinbeck's book was the first book I read in Engl...
I grew up with a single mother, and although we didn't have a lot of money, she cared a great deal about what we ate. We were the original health-food family. We shopped at what were called health-food stores before Whole Foods - everything came from...
I traveled the state of Florida for two years campaigning. I have never met a job creator who told me that they were waiting for the next tax increase before they started growing their business. I've never met a single job creator who's ever said to ...
You know, I never knew if I had any talent when I started in this business. My first job was being a page at The Tonight Show. I saw Jack Paar come out one night and sit on the edge of his desk and talk about what he'd done the night before. I though...
When you're a chef, you graze. You never get a chance to sit down and eat. They don't actually sit down and eat before you cook. So when I finish work, the first thing I'll do, and especially when I'm in New York, I'll go for a run. And I'll run 10 o...
I've done four other films since 'Submarine,' so that's quite cool. It's just good to have people respect your work; I've never had that before. Yeah, my life has changed crazy. I'm a kid from a small town in south Wales, I play my Xbox usually and a...
As somebody who, in my second marriage, insisted on a prenuptial agreement, I can also testify that sometimes it is an act of love to chart the exit strategy before you enter the union, in order to make sure that not only you, but your partner as wel...
