Writing nonfiction is more like sculpture, a matter of shaping the research into the finished thing. Novels are like paintings, specifically watercolors. Every stroke you put down you have to go with. Of course you can rewrite, but the original strok...
Historians once assumed that when childhood mortality was high, people must not have loved their children very much; it would have been too painful. Research has since proved that assumption wrong.
Once upon a time, I was a workaholic clocking more than 80 hours per week. That changed after I began to write. I now work only around 35 hours per week. I do not work on weekends because these are the days that I use for research as well as for my w...
Microsoft Research has a thing called the Sense Cam that, as you walk around, it's taking photos all the time. And the software will filter and find the ones that are interesting without having to think, 'Let's get out the camera and get that shot.' ...
I see myself as life-sized, certainly not a supersized personality, and apparently after 30 years of television, that's what the audience thinks of me as well. I know this because for the first time in my career, I've just seen market research, and t...
Even with only two people on board, where maintenance is a large piece of our working day, we still have time to do scientific research. We have to be ready to support those Shuttle visits in a lot of different ways.
I teach classes 28 weeks of the year, but the rest of the time I do research and write books. While I'm writing a book, which I probably do two out of every three years, it's like having a second job. I squeeze in the hours when I can.
If you do your research on hot springs all over the world, they're usually places of peace. People, even in warring nations and so forth, they'll go and live in peace together around the hot springs, which were always considered medicinal. I firmly b...
I'd studied 16th century science and magic. I thought it was strange that people were interested in the same kinds of things my research was about. The more I thought about it, the more intriguing it became and pretty soon I was writing a novel about...
Manufacturing doesn't just mean building cars and metal-bashing; it includes making pharmaceuticals and hi-tech electronics. A crucial part of the process is the research and development that allows better and greener products to come to market. Brit...
It is critical to develop a biofuel industry powered by feedstocks produced in every corner of the country, in addition to the Midwest. That is why USDA has established five regional research centers working on science necessary to ensure profitable ...
Of course, giving is deeply emotional. But supplementing emotion with research makes it more likely that a gift can have a bigger impact. It's like any investment. After all, you wouldn't put funds into stocks or bonds without understanding the poten...
I'm on 'Two and a Half Men,' and I don't want to be on it. Please stop watching it, please stop filling your head with filth. People say it's just entertainment. Do some research on the effects of television and your brain, and I promise you, you'll ...
What works for men does not always work for women, because success and likability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women. That's what the research shows. As a man gets more successful, everyone is rooting for him. As a ...
I was looking to do something non-fiction because I had done a strip, 'My Mom Was a Schizophrenic.' I really enjoyed the process of doing that strip, despite its subject matter. To do it I'd had to do a lot of research and reading and I figured I'd l...
When I was writing 'The White Tiger' I lived in a building pretty much exactly like the one I described in this novel, and the people in the book are the people I lived with back then. So I didn't have to do much research to find them.
If Man is stranger to his own research however, he starts redefining the life to cover up his err, and finally in his run, at his last hour, asks himself "What is this all about?" and lets his hour pass over.
I get a very vague idea and - perhaps because I once was a journalist, or perhaps because that's what made me want to be a journalist - I go off and explore it for a bit, rather than mapping out a plot and then filling in the research.
If I get hit by a bus tomorrow, my patients will not even be postponed. Another surgeon would step in and take over. The reason to do research and writing is that it at least makes me feel not entirely replaceable. If I didn't write, I don't know if ...
It’s hard to build models of inflation that don't lead to a multiverse. It’s not impossible, so I think there’s still certainly research that needs to be done. But most models of inflation do lead to a multiverse, and evidence for inflation wil...
Coaches do so much research about a referee because they believe refereeing is such a crucial part of the game that the result may hinge on what we say or do. They probably know more about me than I know myself!
