The truly great books are always novels: 'Anna Karenina,' 'The Brothers Karamazov,' 'The Magic Mountain.' Just as with 'Shahnameh,' I browse these books from time to time to remember how a great book works on us or to teach my students at Columbia Un...
I'm a creative person who had a lot of dark time in my life. I can still get to it: I can still go to a relationship or a time when things weren't great. But it's getting further and further from me.
My friends, history, history calls us to this time and to this place. A solemn choice rests with us - where do we go from here? Do we move slowly and incrementally? Or do we seize the challenge of our time and tackle the great issues of our day.
Mind training is based on the idea that two opposite mental factors cannot happen at the same time. You could go from love to hate. But you cannot, at the same time - toward the same object, the same person - want to harm and want to do good.
There was some scene in The Blues Brothers movie, when they had the chicken wire across the front of the stage, and it was almost like that. They had a big guard rail around the stage, which kept the college kids from getting on... we had some good t...
The particular aspect of time that I'm interested in is the arrow of time: the fact that the past is different from the future. We remember the past but we don't remember the future. There are irreversible processes. There are things that happen, lik...
One of the things that a lot of people fail to realize is that 'I will do it later' is not a time or date. It could end up being done months or years from now, or even not at all. Stay true to your goals and dreams at all times.
An idea is a gift, a finished project is turning that gift into a book by making yourself write even when you don't want to. There is no such thing as a block of time to write. You have to carve time from a busy day. Elaine L. Orr
The problem with most of us, we waste time in seeking answers from others, of those questions we already have the solutions but not ready to do. In fact, we wait if somebody else does it for us or come up with shortcuts.
CBS started to confiscate our packages and mail as a safety procedure. A lot of packages that people send for the holidays and to our kids we can't open. A lot of times they are from overseas. It's very upsetting at times.
Anyone who knows me, knows I don't walk away from a commitment, but I had a commitment to myself. Yes, there were times Nickelodeon made it more difficult than it needed to be, but there were also times they made it easier.
It was a dreamlike time for me from December 1997 to March of '98. Before that, I was basically unknown. Then, bang! The starting gun fired, and everybody just started running. It was learn-on-the-job. And there were more opportunities for work than ...
I'd done my time in corporate America, from McDonald's making shakes to Morgan Stanley making deals and, yet, I felt awfully constrained by the uniform - not just my clothes, but how I felt I needed to conform - that a traditional job required me to ...
Everything related to 'SNL,' that was very sudden - from the time I found out I was joining the cast to the time I could read on a blog that someone watching the show thinks I'm fat, that was about 30 days. That blog part, that could've moved a littl...
When I was in Taiwan, we were there for about 8 months, and I was 11 at the time, so it was definitely a culture shock. But it was a really interesting time to be there. I didn't entirely realize how different it is from the States. I just accepted i...
During our stay in London for the first time I was able to establish personal contact with some of the organic chemists, whose work I knew and admired from the literature. I found them most gracious and helpful.
As a novelist, I suppose I can say that I'm highly articulate. But I know, as a person, in other ways, I'm not always articulate. I think we are all, from time to time, inarticulate, at some level, about some things.
It's true that at the time I was fond of Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan, and it was from them that I learned about this kind of simple, swift-paced style, but the main reason for the style of my first novel is that I simply did not have the time...
I hate people saying anything stupid. I don't really suffer fools very well at all. When people are acting like idiots, not that I'm not guilty of doing the odd idiotic thing myself from time to time, but when people say stupid things, it stresses me...
I get insecure about a lot of things. In my line of work, unfortunately, your appearance is important, and I'm always like, 'Am I going to the gym enough this month? Have I been taking care of myself?' I get insecure about things from time to time.
One of the things I'm always reminded of when I'm back on stage is how much you have to be aware of and in control of. There is no tight shot. There is no 'we're only shoulders-up this time.' No, from the top of your head to your pinky toe, you're te...
