He was making music - Howells, Finzi, Holst - so you could see the sounds in the serried air. Serried. Then just as suddenly empty when his sound-proof right hand closed off the notes.
I had taken a course in Ethics. I read a thick textbook, heard the class discussions and came out of it saying I hadn't learned a thing I didn't know before about morals and what is right or wrong in human conduct.
I wrote poems in my corner of the Brooks Street station. I sent them to two editors who rejected them right off. I read those letters of rejection years later and I agreed with those editors.
A lot of people go off and have fun adventures, or hard adventures, and their impulse is to write about them right away. What really makes a difference is having some perspective on what happened.
I wish I looked more like my mother, but I think I look like my father. I wish I had one of those naturally beautiful faces. Or a more quirky face. I'm right down the middle: not interesting enough, not pretty enough.
When assumptions were made that I was going to bail out there was a little part of my brain that thought 'I am going to do to prove them wrong'. In the end that wouldn't be coming from my heart and doing what was right.
Sometimes I think about dying. And then I wonder about going to hell. And then I think that if and when I go there, the place will be completely organized and run by lost souls, with a council and a works committee and an ethics panel, and I'll feel ...
I think that the president of Iran has the authority wherever which - where - wherever the national interests of the country are involved and, when it is necessary and expedient and required to speak and talk with others in order to promote the right...
If you want to go the scorched-earth, Obamacare-is-like-slavery route and choose to stay uninsured, you will have the Palinesque guts, the Cruzian fortitude to wave off the ambulance that will appear to scoop you up should something bad happen to you...
Chad was in the right spot. He got a little aggressive with the third shot there. He probably didn't want that putt he had there for the par. And you don't want to put it back there where Casey and Sergio did because you have 20 feet of break there.
This is our skin and nobody has the right to crumple us like a paper only to find another skin to write on, and then another, ruining people like they’re pages, like they are somehow replaceable. Because that will only leave our delicate and fragil...
This is the key to the entire universe. You know what this is? It's not a microphone, this right here is your voice. This physical thing just amplifies it. Don't be afraid of your voice. You have a voice without a microphone. Use it and don't let any...
You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a Winter's Night a Traveller. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. …Tell the others right away, "No, I don't want to watch TV!… I'm reading! I don't want to be disturbed!
I grew up on a farm and my grandfather quit school when he was 12, but when it came to common sense and animals, he was the smartest person I've ever met, before or since. He taught me that to touch an animal is an earned privilege. It's not a right.
This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in five or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development.
I'm probably one of the worst actors as far as preparation goes, because I actually don't prepare. I find it easier to read the script and whatever hits me in my stomach, like deep down, I just go with it. And the director kind of molds me whether to...
When you find the right people, you never let go. The people who count are the ones who are your friends in lean times. You have all the friends you want when things are going well.
What I have said to my team is that at a point such as this, with 40% adjustment in our currency, it means that Malawians are paying the price. While that is going on, they need to see, us, the commitment on our part, particularly right at the top. T...
And I've tried to give us a higher profile. Typically, at a board meeting, we'd pass resolutions about the civil-rights issue of the day, but we'd never tell anyone. So I've instituted a policy of announcing our resolutions at the end of our meetings...
I was never confident about finishing a book, but friends encouraged me. When I finished my first book, it was accepted by a publisher right away and became an instant bestseller. One male critic called it the most shocking book he ever read.
When I was at drama school in the U.K., I was there for two and a half years, and we did one week of television and film. It's right before you leave. It's like, 'We've taught you Chekhov and Shakespeare; you are likely to be in a washing-up soap-liq...
