My grandmother and I followed my mother here, to a house a block north of Hollywood Boulevard but a million miles away from Hollywood, if you know what I mean. We would hang out behind the ropes and look at the movie stars arriving at the premieres.
Our nation was founded with a bunch of founding legislators who joined together to move our country out of the blocks and get us started, and every generation since then has found a way to advance the ball down the field.
Our cautious ancestors, when yawning, blocked the way to the entrance of evil spirits by putting their hands before their mouths. We find a reason for the gesture in the delicacy of manner which forbids an indecent exposure.
I will not stand idly when anyone gets in the way of the national interest and tries to block the national vision. From where I sit, I can tell you, a president is always as strong as she wants to be.
In New York, the street adventures are incredible. There are a thousand stories in a single block. You see the stories in the people's faces. You hear the songs immediately. Here in Los Angeles, there are less characters because they're all inside au...
If you're a writer, the insight of other writers - if there's some kind of Holy Grail message on how to deal with writer's block or how to deal with any problem that can come up - whether you're writing about yourself or a group of people, I find tha...
I think that Paul Gasol is the most skilled big man in the NBA today with his ability to post on either block, the way he runs the floor, and the way he can shoot the mid-range jump shot.
Language is possible due to a number of cognitive and physical characteristics that are unique to humans but none of which that are unique to language. Coming together they make language possible. But the fundamental building block of language is com...
If you want to know why all writers are a little crazy read 'The Midnight Disease' by Alice W. Flaherty. She talks about the drive to write, writer's block, and the creative brain. I know what's wrong with me!
There are two kinds of sculptures. There's the kind that subtracts: Michelangelo starts with a block of marble and chips away. And then there is the kind that adds, building with clay, piling it on. The way I write novels is to keep piling on and pil...
I try to write in plain brown blocks of American speech but occasionally set in an ancient word or a strange word just to startle the reader a little bit and to break up the monotony of the plain American cadence.
I would say that the Pentagon Papers case of 1971 - in which the government tried to block the The New York Times and The Washington Post that they obtained from a secret study of how we got involved in the war in Vietnam - that is probably the most ...
For me, Glasgow is all about the people and the spirit of the place. You have enough Gregg's bakers, though, I'll say that. The opening of the 1977 'Star Wars' movie was possibly the only time I've seen a longer queue round the block than in Glasgow ...
The benefit of this kind of outlining is that you discover a story's flaws before you invest a lot of time writing the first draft, and it's almost impossible to get stuck at a difficult chapter, because you've already done the work to push through t...
Teaching is a distraction and a burden, but it's also an incredible stimulus. And a reprieve, in a way. When you're trying to work on something and it's not going anywhere, you can go to school and there's a two-and-a-half-hour block of time in which...
A century ago, scientists believed there was only one obvious stomping ground for alien biology in our solar system: Mars. Because it was reminiscent of Earth, Mars was assumed to be chock-a-block with animate beings, and its putative inhabitants got...
Cookie: How come you got all this money? Harry Block: I always keep hooker money around, you know, 'cause I once paid by check years ago and the I.R.S. killed me.
Harry Block: [referring to Cookie] She's got a PhD, this girl. Doris: Really? [Sarcastically] Doris: I don't know how she did on her written, but I'm sure she got an A on her orals!
Harry Block: [to his brother-in-law] I don't think you're a paranoid. I think you're the opposite of a paranoid. I think you go around with the insane delusion that everybody likes you!
Dr. Dakota Block: I want you to to take this gun, and if anyone comes to the door who's not me, I want you to shoot them. Shoot them in the head - just like in your video games.
[watching a young woman get burned at the stake] Jöns: Who will take care care of that child? Is it the angels or God or Satan or the emptiness? The emptiness, Sire? Antonius Block: It can't be so!
