If you don't put 99 percent of yourself into the writing, there will be no publishing career. There's the writer and there's the author. The author - you don't ever think about the author. Just think about the writer. So my advice would be, find a wa...
I think I've been addicted to openness since long before my rock career. I was terrible as a teenager. I used to go out of my way to make people uncomfortable with personal details. I was always fascinated by the idea that we have these weird, random...
I think professionally I admire people and the way they've handled their careers and being in the media. But the people that I used to inspire me and keep me going were my peers in Toronto - I would see the same girls going to audition after audition...
Since I don't come from a privileged background, I couldn't afford to be irresponsible with career decisions. I wrote two books alongside my job and resigned only when I realised I can make a living.
I think what you have to recognise is everybody has their own deal, and everybody has challenges. Do I think that it was easier for me because at a certain point in my career I didn't have children? Yeah, I think absolutely so. But everybody has thei...
I had a unique circumstance in which my career was associated with George W. Bush, who went straight to the top. I went to work for him in October of 1993. So my whole identity in national politics is associated with this president, and you know, I k...
My political science degree is always on the back-burner. I took my LSAT, so even if I want to take the LSAT again, I know what I'm getting into. I'll keep it on the back-burner. Who knows, maybe with my popularity, I can have a career in politics wi...
Each book, intuitively sensed and, in the case of fiction, intuitively worked out, stands on what has gone before, and grows out of it. I feel that at any stage of my literary career it could have been said that the last book contained all the others...
I remember my agent at ICM at the beginning of my career telling me that I wasn't pretty enough, that I was always going to be a quirky sidekick. And he was an ogre of a man. He should have been carrying a torch. If he was in a bar, he couldn't have ...
There's always been a lot of pressure and tension on the line. If 'Pi' didn't work out, I have no idea what my career would be. I don't think I would have gotten another shot at it. If 'Requiem for a Dream' didn't work out, they would have called me ...
One of the things when you're drawing a comic book is that you're spending four or five times as long to draw it as the writer takes to write it. In my career I've had to spend a week drawing something that a writer has thrown out in an hour. And the...
Nobody taught me to play bottleneck. I just saw it and taught myself. I got an old bottle and steamed the label off, put it on the wrong finger, I basically did everything wrong until I met some of the Blues legends early in my career who taught me a...
Dimitri's voice snapped my attention back to him. "That's Adrian Ivashkov." He said the name the same way everyone else did. "Yeah, I know." "This is the second time I've seen you with him." "Yeah," I replied glibly. "We hang out sometimes." Dimitri ...
It's a most peculiar psychology—this business of 'Science is based on faith too, so there!' Typically this is said by people who claim that faith is a good thing. Then why do they say 'Science is based on faith too!' in that angry-triumphal tone, r...
My grandmother lived a remarkable life. She watched her nation fall to pieces; and even when she became collateral damage, she believed in the power of the human spirit. She gave when she had nothing; she fought when she could barely stand; she clung...
The code-of-ethics playlist: o Treat your colleagues, family, and friends with respect, dignity, fairness, and courtesy. o Pride yourself in the diversity of your experience and know that you have a lot to offer. o Commit to creating and supporting a...
Even when I ran my bar I followed the same policy. A lot of customers came to the bar. If one in ten enjoyed the place and said he'd come again, that was enough. If one out of ten was a repeat customer, then the business would survive. To put it anot...
The summer I turned eleven, I found out that ghosts are real. Guess it's hard to rest nice and easy in your coffin if you got stuff on your mind. Your soul stays chained to earth instead of zipping up to heaven to sing in one of the angel choirs. Som...
Charles Bushman: There was a young man by the name of John Leggit Hunter who ran a filling station business, a good filling station business and he's one of these young men we all come across in life, I'm sure you've come across 'em, who did not dese...
[after Shane enters the bar and orders asks for a soda pop, Chris tries to bully him] Chris Calloway: Well, what'll it be? Lemon, strawberry or lilac, sodbuster? Shane: You speakin' to me? Chris Calloway: I don't see nobody else standin' there. [thro...
The purpose of every business and organization is to get and keep customers.