In the words of a very famous dead person, 'A nation that does not know its history is doomed to do poorly on the Scholastic Aptitude Test.
My greatest sense of accomplishment has come from having two amazing sons, but it's also a paradox in that the times when I felt like the biggest failure have been times when I felt like, as a parent, I wasn't making the right decisions or succeeding...
All I want is the same opportunities as the filmmakers I grew up admiring. But you know, I've had lots of amazing opportunities to do the movies I wanted to do. If I could write my future, I'd want to keep making character-based films that can make u...
That's an animal fable about humility. If you survive your mistake, you must learn from it. Accept that you're fragile, vulnerable, and sometimes stupid. Realize that you're not immortal and you've got to take care of yourself. And then laugh it off ...
Magdalena pulls me away by the arm. “I am the stronger one of Titus and I,” she says over the marketplace din. “Woman are always the stronger sex.” She smiles to herself. “The trick is not appearing to be so.
We've all read, I'm sure, a Superman book where we didn't really feel like we knew the character. Where the writer, often with the best of intentions, has tried put a personal stamp on the character, whether it be to try and make him more current, or...
As far as I can tell, the only unambiguous consequence of the claimed invasion of Earth by beings from another star system has been a nonstop torrent of TV specials. So if you're one of the many who believe the aliens are here, you really do have to ...
Pat Riley, Dave Checketts and Ernie Grunfeld - they brought the Knicks back to the glory days. It started with Rick Pitino. We took our first step with him, making the playoffs. When Pat came in we just kicked the door open.
'Where The Wild Things Are,' I think I could have written on my own. When I brought Dave Eggers on, I already had 60 pages of notes. I technically could have, but I don't think I was ready to. I needed him to be there and help me.
I really like Wisconsin. I enjoy it. I enjoy the people. I enjoy the fact that it's not L.A. or New York. And there's some sense of normalcy here - people having children in homes they can somewhat afford to live in.
I didn't know that people compared Bill Hicks and I but certainly I'm flattered if they do. I knew Bill a bit. We had dinner a couple of times and played guitar together once. I really tried to keep my distance from him professionally.
I carry my own film guys with me now. People think that's a huge expense, but with technology like it is these days, it's not. You can film videos and everything with a Canon Mark II, and shoot a movie. They're doing it for next to nothing, by compar...
A just laicism allows religious freedom. The state does not impose religion but rather gives space to religions with a responsibility toward civil society, and therefore it allows these religions to be factors in building up society.
Human rights, of course, must include the right to religious freedom, understood as the expression of a dimension that is at once individual and communitarian - a vision that brings out the unity of the person while clearly distinguishing between the...
I like myself. I think I'm cool. But I think when you're in a band you take on a role within the band, and I think people over the course of years can identify those roles as almost being bigger than just the individual. I don't know. It's kind of ha...
I brought a Border Collie back home to Vancouver from Wales - where some of my ancestors are from - and needed to challenge him in other ways than just being my pet. So I investigated sheep herding and took a few lessons, and decided I was probably l...
Over and over again, financial experts and wonkish talking heads endeavor to explain these mysterious, 'toxic' financial instruments to us lay folk. Over and over, they ignobly fail, because we all know that no one understands credit default obligati...
Sometimes, I'm driving along in my car, and a song from my high-school years comes on the radio: Springsteen's 'Thunder Road.' Just the opening few chords make me want to roll down the window and let the wind blow back my hair.
I used to have 20/20 vision, believe it or not; that's gone because of all the reading I did when I wasn't supposed to, reading in the back of a car, waiting for each street light to go past so I could grab another sentence.
When I go to Indian reservations in the West, and especially to the Pine Ridge Reservation, I sometimes feel unsure where to put my foot when I open the car door. The very ground is different from where I usually stand. There are fewer curbs, fewer s...
One thing that worried me was how writers get categorized and so they end up having to write the same kind of book again and again. That is fine if it is what you want to do, but I would rather be locked in the trunk of my car with a weasel than writ...
