Writing a novel is not at all like riding a bike. Writing a novel is like having to redesign a bike, based on laws of physics that you don't understand, in a new universe. So having written one novel does nothing for you when you have to write the se...
I understand the rock star deal having been one and still going out strapping my guitar on and performing. Now, I probably do 30 or 40 dates a year and I get to relive how I felt at 19 when I played in some really bad bands.
We’re going to make a tunnel for that ship. We’re going to make sure that little lady has every chance in the world to survive. If I get any trouble out of any of ya…” he paused. “I’ll handle it myself, do you understand?” Johan… “V...
Culture is an elevated expression of the inner voice which the different peoples of the Earth have heard in the depths of their being, a voice which conveys the vibrant compassion and wisdom of the cosmic life. For different cultures to engage in int...
Even if you didn't lose your job, if you're one of the two-thirds of Ontarians who don't have a pension, you lost savings. Even if you've earned most of that back now, you are a changed person. You are less secure, less confident. And I understand th...
I'm a conservative first, and I believe that, if we do a better job of helping Americans understand what we're trying to do, to showcase every place in the country that our ideas are working at the state level, that that will help those at the federa...
When we are self-aware, we are able to reach beyond ourselves and objectively assess others... allowing us to meet them where they are at, seeing into their needs and struggles, so we can understand the way they experience life, even if it is vastly ...
If you want to save the snow leopard, or the giant Redwoods, or the Okavango delta, or the Amazon, or the atmosphere, or the Earth, or those you love, or yourself, or the human race, this is the only path that can achieve that–so the truth is the s...
I used to always read my stuff. And I could never understand why artists would say, 'Oh, I can't read my older stuff.' I'd go, 'Are you crazy? I could read my stuff forever!' Now it's a little harder.
It's weird because when you initially write a song, you write it with no understanding that the world is maybe going to hear it one day. So when you go into the studio, you don't see the hundreds of people at a gig or the viewers on TV, you just writ...
No engineer can go upon a new work and not find something peculiar, that will demand his careful reflection, and the deliberate consideration of any advice that he may receive; and nothing so fully reveals his incapacity as a pretentious assumption o...
Subjective conscious mind is an analog of what is called the real world. It is built up with a vocabulary or lexical field whose terms are all metaphors or analogs of behavior in the physical world…concrete metaphors increase enormously our powers ...
In Asian languages, the word for 'mind' and the word for 'heart' are same. So if you're not hearing mindfulness in some deep way as heartfulness, you're not really understanding it. Compassion and kindness towards oneself are intrinsically woven into...
It's a weird thing to have a Hall of Fame for rock. It's weird that I spent years worshiping the Cure, and here's the Chili Peppers, and then one gets in one doesn't. It's ridiculous. In my heart of hearts, it means nothing to me, but I do understand...
Taking the one seat describes two related aspects of spiritual work. Outwardly, it means selecting one practice and teacher among all the possibilities, and inwardly, it means having the determination to stick with that practice through whatever diff...
Black English is something which - it's a natural system in itself. And even though it is a dialect of English, it can be very difficult for people who don't speak it, or who haven't been raised in it, to understand when it's running by quickly, spok...
I feel an intense intimacy with those who have this loathing interest in me. Further than this, I know what they mean, I sympathize with them, I understand them. There should be a name (as poetic as love) for this relationship between loather and loa...
Bess McNeill: I don't understand what you're saying. How can you love a word? You cannot love words. You can't be in love with a word. You can only love another human being. That's perfection.
People write fiction in their minds all the time - every time we read a 'human interest' news story, or a true crime tale, we find ourselves fascinated because we're trying to understand why people behave the way they do, why they make the choices th...
There was a time before I felt I was a real writer, when I was a yarn spinner and I just wanted to tell story until it was over. But then there came a time where I was like, 'No, I want to understand something through writing this that I might have n...
As you know, I am a novelist, and I really want to write novels. But I knew enough about the Dreyfus case to understand immediately why what happened to Dreyfus was not merely a cause celebre from the end of the 19th century, but an event that could ...