Ballet in September used to be dead as a dodo. Now, with City Ballet's ingenious decision to give us four weeks of repertory in the early fall, having cut down on the relentlessly long spring season when dancers, critics and audiences droop on the vi...
I would often take this bus and go to a nearby village where I had hordes of animal friends. I was hardly around four or five years old then. The conductor was so used to seeing me hop on to the bus and get down at the same place, that he never asked...
Could dump two Chinee down in one of our maria and they would get rich selling rocks to each other while raising twelve kids. Then a Hindu would sell retail stuff he got from them wholesale--below cost at a fat profit. We got along.
Each time a person stands for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, they send a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a curr...
I do not know of a Chinese blogger who has gone to jail, but I know several who have had their blogs shut down. I also know some Chinese bloggers who have received threatening phone calls from police warning them to 'be careful.' In some cases, they ...
We make such messes in this life, both accidently and on purpose. But wiping the surface clean doesn't really make anything any neater. It just masks what is below. It's only when you really dig down deep, go underground, that you can see who you rea...
Oh, measure it all out! Acceptable levels of misery and suffering!' The cane swung down, thumped hard on the ground. 'Acceptable? Who the fuck says any level is acceptable? What sort of mind thinks that?' Karsa grinned, 'Why, a civilized one.' 'Indee...
A little arrogance (or even a lot) isn't such a bad thing, although your mother undoubtedly told you different. Mine did. "Pride goeth before a fall, Stephen", she said... and then I found out - right around the age that is 19 x 2 - that eventually y...
Getting a spark of inspiration to write is the best feeling in the world, no matter what time it is...I get a feeling on the inside that urges me to get up from whatever I am doing, grabbing that pen and writing down whatever my heart and mind tells ...
I have my own ego, greed, love and a passion but sometime that same greed and ego kneels me down. In that moment I don't kneel and cry for my ego but I will clear a dirt over my pant and run for my passion. Ego can kill us but not your passion not yo...
Usually after a good puke you feel better right away. We hugged each other and then said good-bye and went off to opposite ends of the hall to lie down in our own rooms. There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends.
Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown. And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is...
If you're on a freeway and want to know if you're being followed, what you do is enormously vary your speed. You accelerate to 100 and slow down to 30 and then accelerate again. In a city, you make a lot of turns against the stream of traffic. You go...
When I first started wearing wigs, I didn't know you had to anchor them down with bobby pins. I walked out during a windy day and my wig blew off and got stuck to a branch. I was walking while my wig was hanging! If that's not the most embarrassing t...
I used to carbo load. But then I ran my first marathon, actually on a whim. All I could think of was that I needed protein. I remember going to the grocery store and buying one of those roasted chickens. I remember downing a bunch of that and, yes, I...
If you keep your heart open, that same pain can become a purifying pain, a strengthening pain. If we choose forgiveness over bitterness, that pain can heal instead of hurt. Instead of a pain that divides, it can be a pain that binds. Instead of a pai...
I tend to start with a kernel, a vague concept, and just begin to write things down - notes about a character, lines of dialogue, descriptive passages about a place. One idea fires another. I do that for about a year. By then there's a story, and I'l...
This human body is the greatest body in the universe, and a human being the greatest being. Man is higher than all animals, than all angels; none is greater than man. Even the Devas (gods) will have to come down again and attain to salvation through ...
I never think about Wall Street - why should I - but to go down there so often while filming 'Working Girl,' to become acquainted with this whole different world, and to find out what goes on behind the scenes, is so interesting. There's so much of t...
I think about the characters I've created and then I sit down and start typing and see what they will do. There's a lot of subconscious thought that goes on. It amazes me to find out, a few chapters later, why I put someone in a certain place when I ...
I don't know too many parents that want to feed their kids soda, but high-fructose corn syrup is cheap. The price of soda in 20 years has gone down 40 percent while the price of whole foods, fruits and vegetables, has gone up 40 percent and obesity g...
