I read everything that Tolkien wrote, and also read biographies of him. I was fascinated by his experiences in World War I, which includes the loss of life of some of his very, very close friends. I think he writes about that a lot in 'The Hobbit' an...
It's tempting to just write a comic called 'Everyone Mail Randall Munroe Twenty Bucks' - maybe it would work, and I could just close down the 'xkcd' store and sit on a beach and draw pictures and make snarky Reddit posts for the rest of my life.
I'd been writing poems for many years, but most of them I didn't like. Then, when I was 23, I wrote one I did like, sent it to 'The Paris Review' - the highest publication I could think of - and they accepted it. No other moment in my literary life h...
My books have been translated into various languages and sold in other countries, but I never have any contact with the foreign publishers and am so disconnected from that process that it seems almost imaginary. With 'How to Save a Life', I worked cl...
Sunday is the one day I keep reminding myself that I should lay around and take it easy, but because I am O.C.D. and an extreme multitasker, I find it hard to get lazy. I love Sundays for painting because it's quieter; the gallery is closed, and ther...
I say to people who care for people who are dying, if you really love that person and want to help them, be with them when their end comes close. Sit with them - you don't even have to talk. You don't have to do anything but really be there with them...
He used to have a tent show, a little tent show, and I thought I was going to get a job working one year on the tent show, but he closed it down and I never got to go out there, but anyway, he had a sax and played drums.
The Tea Party isolated Mitt Romney from mainstream voters, linking him to a rabid ideology that he could not shake as he desperately tried to move to the middle in the closing weeks of the campaign. Lesson: The loudest voices don't often command the ...
So one day, in a fit of trying to do something different, I just dyed my hair dark brown and got my first role a week later, after which I thought: 'People are closed-minded, man! Like a different hair colour changes everything!'
I learned something important in my race against Senator Brown: voters want political leaders who are willing to break the partisan gridlock. They want fewer closed-door roadblocks and more public votes on legislation that could improve their lives.
When things get unbearable, I wrap myself into a tight ball and shut my eyes. Every muscle in my body is tense. I open my eyes and I'm still where I was when I closed them to escape. Nothing's changed.
But these realities will make themselves felt soon enough and while I am certainly not asking you to close your eyes to the experiences of earlier generations, I want to advise you not to conform too soon and to resist the pressure of practical neces...
Augusta is a very unique golf course. It's a long hitters' course; main reason is because the greens are so severe, and the areas where they put the pin is such a small area. The little plateaus and undulations mean it's incredibly important to be cl...
My mum - and my granny and I - would close the curtains, turn on the TV and snuggle up and watch 'Come Dancing.' It was actually my granny who was the biggest fan; she loved the show, and she passed on her passion for it to me. I loved the dancing bu...
If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them.
He was making music - Howells, Finzi, Holst - so you could see the sounds in the serried air. Serried. Then just as suddenly empty when his sound-proof right hand closed off the notes.
Close your eyes and breathe in, concentrate on the breath and heart beat, feel that? You are a living being capable of changing your life and possibly the lives around you, you do not merely exist, your actions affect you and others. Act with love.
I remember so vividly playing a scene with Jimmy Stewart. I was in the back of a covered wagon, and we were doing this little talk in the wilderness. They did his close-up first. I was looking at him and thinking, 'How does he do that?' He is not 'do...
Your heart weeps a little bit when you have to say goodbye to a crew you spend two months with, but when it comes to the part, when you live so close to someone for two months, it kind of fades away and then you see her again on screen later on.
And call me a pig, but isn't it brilliantly refreshing how early the Dutch eat dinner? When they're still laying out the cutlery in achingly hip Barcelona, they're hanging the Closed sign on the restaurant doors of old Amsterdam.
I would have dearly liked to close the French doors between us for a bit of peace, but Mam wouldn't allow it; she said that solitude would give me ideas and the last thing a boy of my age needed was ideas.
