I realized that I didn't need nearly as many calories as I'd grown accustomed to. I ate 100 to 200 calories every two hours or so, consumed healthy proteins (yogurt, lean meat, turkey jerky), and drank a gallon of water a day. And as my weight droppe...
As a child, I had no idea that I would end up in the film industry. My ambitions changed from wanting to join the army like my grandfather to taking up merchant navy as a career to running for India, and finally, investment banking while I was a stud...
When I was a child, it was my dream to be a professional footballer. When I was 14 I visited Milan's San Siro stadium and remember thinking how unbelievable it was. From then onwards I vowed that one day I would be playing there - and I am very proud...
Not a day goes by where I'm not reminded of Gollum by some person in the street who asks me to do his voice or wants to talk to me about him. But because 'The Hobbit' has been talked about as a project for many years, I knew that at some point I'd ha...
My ultimate goal is to create operating systems for myself that allow me to think as little as possible about the silly decisions you can make all day long - like what to eat or where we should meet - so I can focus on making real decisions. Because ...
Songwriters always reminded me of that kid at school who would go around with his guitar, like, 'Yeah, songwritin' man,' looking wistful. That wasn't me - those kinds of people put me off. In the early days, I'd write a bunch of lyrics and almost loo...
But when I look at the fact that today is 1,000 days that we have not had a budget for the United States of America, you know, the House, one of the things we did, we passed a budget last year. But that is still sitting over there at the Senate. And ...
I found 'The Twin' sitting on a coffee table at a writers' colony in 2009. It carried praise from J.M. Coetzee. That seemed ample justification for using it to avoid my own writing. I finished it - weeping - a day later, and I've been puzzling over i...
They say that only very good friends quarrel. But at the end of the day a quarrel is a fight between two people’s egos. Since people cannot understand each other by just being honest. May be its impossible to live your whole life without getting hu...
I write the occasional entry for the 'Times' Theatre blog, especially when I'm in London and seeing two shows a day, but I don't tweet. I don't want to have to express my opinion in 140 characters. That's like writing haiku. You need a certain amount...
Book tours are really kind of fun. You get to stay in nice hotels, you are driven everywhere in big silver cars, you are treated as if you are much more important than you are, you can eat steak three times a day at someone else's expense, and you ge...
I grew up, really, in the days before air conditioning. So I can remember what it was like to be really hot, for instance, and I can remember what it was like when your barber shop and your local stores weren't air conditioned, so it was hot when you...
Do you still have any delusions? For instance, does the furniture threaten you like you said the bureau did at home?" "No, not really. That bureau at the end of my bed here got a little threatening the other day, but I got up and smacked it, and told...
I knew I'd never make it back to the major leagues as a player. Lee MacPhail came to me and asked if I wanted to manage the Yankees' Fort Lauderdale club. I thought about it for a day or two and decided to take the job. That was the turning point. I ...
Excerpt: Paradox – Bound By Blood. The hands on a clock never falter, not for a second. One day ends; and a new begins. If there was one thing on this earth that could be counted on, it was that. Time never paused to mourn the dead. That particular...
Alvin didn't cry, didn't curse, didn't holler.... He was too far gone to roar on that day or even to crack. Only I did.... Only I cracked, alone, later in the one place in our house where I knew I could go to be apart from the living and all that the...
Behind branches, my Moon shines' 'Distance we have, it defines' 'Down side as, it has a lake' 'Due to AUTUMN, the tree got naked' 'Which made my Moons appear' 'but after SPRING, the sight would be rare' 'After a circle, the Day will come again' 'You ...
Every morning we wake up with the same choice: What will my attitude be today? Ask yourself that without fail. Decide that no matter what the day brings, your attitude will include three elements: an awareness of how far you’ve come, gratitude for ...
I enjoyed my upbringing, my siblings did, we're polite, we're respectful, but at the end of the day we're young, we like to have fun. But now, more so than ever, the youth has been vilified to the point where it feels like you can't enjoy being young...
I used to say to myself, 'Well, in the old days everybody danced because they loved to dance, and there was none of this professional garbage going on about how much can you get for this or that or the other, or any of the kinds of things that insecu...
The day you give priority to bogus ethics over human reactions, you become a loser. Human reactions are priceless. Rules should never, ever stifle emotions. Tennis is a very human game facing a great danger that it will be strangulated in a cat's cra...
