I discovered that Robert Todd Lincoln was there for each of the first three assassinations. I wanted to write about the Lincoln Memorial, so when I found out he had attended its dedication, that helped focus it further.
Books don't exist unless you read them. And it's a two way process - you write the book as you read it and you fill in the gaps. You discover it and you put the marks together and without you doing it they're just marks.
Some people are afraid of what they might find if they try to analyze themselves too much, but you have to crawl into your wounds to discover where your fears are. Once the bleeding starts, the cleansing can begin.
Yet it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover act without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and, beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity.
Like many writers, I started by writing short stories. I needed to learn how to write and stories are the most practical way to do this, and less soul-destroying than working your way through a lengthy novel and then discovering it's rubbish.
When I begin to write a story, I usually know how things will end. It's the journey toward that point I must discover. The process is sometimes painful, but also exciting.
Whether or not you discover your talents and passions is partly a matter of opportunity. If you've never been sailing, or picked up an instrument, or tried to teach or to write fiction, how would you know if you had a talent for these things?
Every great scientific truth goes through three stages. First, people say it conflicts with the Bible. Next they say it has been discovered before. Lastly they say they always believed it.
I am always keen to discover something new, but my advice is always to exfoliate. Get rid of those dead, dry cells; then the new skin is ready for moisturising, and you find your inner dewy, youthful glow. It's in there somewhere.
When I later discovered that she (illustrator Faith Jaques) was a compulsive reader who loved to be alone and kept cats because they are the only pets that allow you to be both, my adoration of Jaques and her work could only increase.
When I was a young man, barely 18, I discovered Jesus Christ as my personal saviour, and for six months I told my mother she was damned to hell. That wasn't much fun. I abandoned it.
I realized that you didn't have to make self-deprecating remarks or turn yourself into the butt of some unspoken joke. I also discovered that being big didn't deter possible suitors.
The word ‘sin’ is derived from the Indo-European root ‘es-,’ meaning ‘to be.’ When I discovered this etymology, I intuitively understood that for a [person] trapped in patriarchy, which is the religion of the entire planet, ‘to be’ in...
I remember that the day I finished 'The Angels,' part three of 'The Book of Laughter and Forgetting', I was terribly proud of myself. I was sure that I had discovered the key to a new way of putting together a narrative.
You cannot teach creativity—how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.” Mario Vargas Llosa
Typically, a book is published and gets one season in the sun. Eventually, you write another book, and maybe your old books get a bump, but my books seem to keep being discovered and recommended to new people of all ages.
'Boardwalk' begins literally on the first day of Prohibition, which I think was a wonderful way to start - to have the story kind of come out of this massive historical phenomenon. And the more I researched the '20s, the more I discovered just how in...
I discovered that I wanted to be an actor back when I did my first play in junior high. I've been doing theater in junior high and high school, and I just kept feeding the fire, kept wanting to pursue acting full-on.
Jacen reflected bitterly that a large part of growing up seemed to involve watching everything change, and discovering that all changes are permanent. That nothing ever changes back. That you can’t go home again.
I'd discovered that the range of beauty in breasts is wide; while one should never lightly say that a pair is ugly, one can easily say that a pair of breasts is beautiful. Hedgehogs are beautiful sometimes; so are baby pigs.
I've been reading Tanith Lee since I was a teenager, beginning with 'The Birthgrave' and 'The Storm Lord.' Only recently did I discover, to my delight, how many more of her books I've yet to read.
