My first favourite book was 'Are You My Mother?' A picture book about a lost bird. After that my favourites changed almost yearly. I loved everything by Roald Dahl, but my favourite was probably 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.' A librarian gave m...
A Plan B life can be just as good or better than a Plan A life. You just have to let go of that first dream and realize that God has already written the first chapter of the new life that awaits you. All you have to do is start reading!
My kids are one, three, five and eight, and we are all horsey. The kids have got their ponies and can ride. Our foundation mare is special to our hearts. She was one of my first ever horses. She was my first ever winner at Chester, which is also spec...
As Karl Marx once noted: 'Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.' William Jennings Bryan and the Scopes trial was a tra...
I was the first in my family to go to college, and I waitressed all the way through, using my earnings to pay for a bachelor's degree first and then a master's. I resented classmates who didn't have to work real jobs, the ones who had the luxury of t...
Family is always first - always, always, always first. As a matter of fact, there was a time when I was thinking of running for Governor in California, and I sat with my family. We all discussed it. It was with the three kids. We sat there, and I pol...
I first fell in love with music when I was a little boy. When I first heard music, I felt the beauty in it. Then, being able to tap along on a table top and box was great, but my favorite thing to do was to watch records spin. I would almost get hypn...
'One Tree Hill' will always be very, very special to me. It was my first television show. And my first gig in the business. It was surreal. I booked the role when I was 13. I had just started high school, and literally, I think, a week into high scho...
My novel, which I had started with such hope shortly after publishing my first book of stories, wouldn't budge past the 75-page mark. Nothing I wrote past page 75 made any kind of sense. Nothing. Which would have been fine if the first 75 pages hadn'...
I sold my first short story while I was home on maternity leave, then began working on novels. Since I was reading and enjoying romance novels at the time, the first two unpublished manuscripts I wrote were both romances. I sold my third novel, 'Call...
Basically, I don't ever move too far past the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, because it's of first importance. And I make sure it's of first importance with anyone I'm talking to. It all comes down to that, really, when you get right down t...
If you were the first person ever to design an application for the iPhone and you patented it, you would be very, very better off than we are right now, you know? But you've got to be the first one to do it. So I figured that Led Zeppelin or the Ston...
When I began writing in the mid-1960s, I thought it was not important for readers to know whether I was male or female. Also, I was a great admirer of E.B. White, so I may have thought that it would bring me luck to submit my first manuscript as 'E.L...
Today we often think that before we start living a religious life we have first to accept the creedal doctrines and that before one can have any comprehension of the loyalty and trust of faith, one must first force one's mind to accept a host of inco...
What's funny is my mom took me to the theater for the first time when I was six years old, and I was just amazed by it. I just said, 'Hey Mom, can I do this too?' And so she signed me up for little theater classes, and I remember my first audition fo...
On Sept. 11, 2001, thousands of first responders heroically rushed to the scene and saved tens of thousands of lives. More than 400 of those first responders did not make it out alive. In rushing into those burning buildings, not one of them asked, '...
Before all this happened, I always used to see my stammer as being a negative, all my life, but then when I went on 'Pop Idol,' and the first time I saw it on television, it was really, really bad, but also it made me stand out; it made people rememb...
I will sing whatever I'm given to sing. Growing up, I would sing anything that I was given. If the choir needed a first tenor, I would sing first tenor. If they needed a bass, I would sing bass. Throughout my life, I just figured out ways to hit note...
My specialty as a collector is books that almost have value. When I love a book, I don't buy the first edition, because those have become incredibly expensive. But I might buy a beat-up copy of the second edition, third printing, which looks almost e...
Wish on everything. Pink cars are good, especially old ones. And stars of course, first stars and shooting stars. Planes will do if they are the first light in the sky and look like stars. Wish in tunnels, holding your breath and lifting your feet of...
A lifetime isn't forever, so take the first chance, don't wait for the second one! Because sometimes, there aren't second chances! And if it turns out to be a mistake? So what! This is life! A whole bunch of mistakes! But if you never get a second ch...
