Virtue is something you have to get good at, like playing the trombone or tolerating bores at parties. Being a virtuous human being takes practice; and those who are brilliant at being human (what Christians call the saints) are the virtuosi of the m...
Like many people, I only knew of Ford Madox Ford through a book called 'The Good Soldier,' which is everybody's favorite Ford Madox Ford if they have one, but I came to read 'Parade's End' when it was suggested via Damien Timmer of Mammoth Screen.
I've come to recognize what I call my 'inside interests.' Telling stories. And helping people tell their stories is a sort of interpersonal gardening. My work at NBC News was to report the news, but in hindsight, I often tried to look for some insigh...
As a digital technology writer, I have had more than one former student and colleague tell me about digital switchers they have serviced through which calls and data are diverted to government servers or the big data algorithms they've written to be ...
One look at an email can rob you of 15 minutes of focus. One call on your cell phone, one tweet, one instant message can destroy your schedule, forcing you to move meetings, or blow off really important things, like love, and friendship.
When we are unwilling to draw clear moral lines between free societies and fear societies, when we are unwilling to call the former good and the latter evil, we will not be able to advance the cause of peace because peace cannot be disconnected from ...
When I was seven years old, I fell in love with a series published by Bobbs-Merrill called 'The Childhood of Famous Americans.' In it, historical figures like Clara Barton, Nancy Hanks, Elias Howe, Patrick Henry, and dozens more came to life for me a...
When the principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then the battle is your calling, and peace has become sin. You must at the price of dearest peace lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy with all the fire ...
If you chase the market, it's not going to come to you. You have to have faith in yourself. I think one of the differences in what I call 'civilians' and 'authors' is that we have an antenna hat buzzing all the time.
We all have our convictions formed by different things, and mine are informed by my faith, they're informed by the Word of God, and I found that to be an anchor for me, a compass and a guide for me. When people start bullying one another and calling ...
The idea of confidence, of the emotions of the population, is an incredibly important one in economics. John Maynard Keynes called it 'animal spirit.' And if people are feeling generally good about the future, they're more likely to spend money, to s...
I was at Disney for about four years, so I made good friends there. It was a time of not a lot of creativity. It was the end of the first great era, with a few of the original animators. They called them the Nine Old Men. I learned a lot from them, b...
I want Barack Obama for president. I love Obama. I call Palin the helicopter huntress from hell! I want my children to have a wonderful future, and it's disturbing when I look around. Americans aren't very well-liked. A likable president would be a g...
You can't even kill yourself if it isn't your time to go. People have no control whatsoever over what happens to them, and they are beginning to realize this. The future lies in the time of living. Your doing something will get you into tomorrow, if ...
There's clearly humor that goes too far and humor that is violative, and we are engaged in our humor in a complex call-and-response with one another. I'm telling you a joke to see if you think that it's funny... but if one of us violates some princip...
I owe my whole acting career to the fact that I'm a singer. I went out to Los Angeles and auditioned for a TV show called 'Fame L.A.' The original role was for a comedian, but they said I wasn't very funny, so they asked me, 'What else can you do?' S...
At home in L.A., Sunday is lazy. It's the wife and me lying in bed with coffee, watching 'The Soup' or something funny on TiVo. The kid will occasionally join us. Eventually, breakfast is at a place down the street called Paty's. And we always have s...
Every time I'm in Canada I feel more Swedish, and every time I'm in Sweden I feel more Canadian. I belong in both places and I love them both equally. It's funny because the Swedes claim me as their Swedish pride and the Canadians call me their Canad...
My career only took off because of one football game. I thought it was funny. 'Playboy' called and offered me a cover just like that. I turned them down initially, because I was nervous about it and my boyfriend at the time didn't want me to do it, b...
I would call it a comedy variety show. We have some people just doing straight standup. We usually try to have one musical act of sort. So its just people being funny in different ways, not just sketch, not just standup, not just characters, all of t...
Some of George W. Bush's friends say that Bush believes God called him to be president during these times of trial. But God told me that He/She/It had actually chosen Al Gore by making sure that Gore won the popular vote and, God thought, the Elector...
