I can read a newspaper article, and it might trigger something else in my mind. I often like to choose in historical fiction things or subject matter I don't feel have been given a fair shake in history.
I've become sort of an accidental advocate for attachment parenting, which is a style of parenting that... basically, the way mammals parent and the way people have parented for pretty much all of human history except the last 200 years or so.
When you are 'world building,' people will oftentimes judge how well you built your world. They want to know: Is the culture believable? Does it feel like it has a history? I try very hard to pay attention to details.
I'm not saying this in a condescending kind of way, but it's quite simple: The making of America was a heroic thing. Australia has a much murkier, much more complex view of its history. It's just full of all these open wounds we don't really know wha...
Instead of being a page-turner, 'Moby-Dick' is a repository of American history and culture and the essentials of Western literature. The book is so encyclopedic that space aliens could use it to re-create the whale fishery as it once existed on the ...
I've always been fascinated by the Norsemen, their lives, history and cosmology. The more we study them the more interesting they become... breaking their own stereotypes. We usually think of them as barbarians, but there were aspects to their societ...
I have always been drawn to the Restoration period of Charles II. I have a soft spot for Charles Stuart, who was always loving and kind to the opposite sex. The members of his court were fascinating, and Barbara Castlemaine was one of the greatest co...
The history of the past, a hundred years from now, won't be the history of the past that we learned in school because much more will have been revealed, and adjectives we can't even imagine will have been brought to bear on what we did learn in schoo...
My earliest, most impactful encounter with a book was when I was seven and awoke early on Christmas morning to find Roald Dahl's 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' in my stocking. I had never been so excited by the sight of a book - and have possibl...
Every day in our house is like Valentine's Day. I've kept it traditional with what my dad has done with my mom. Every morning, I get up and I make coffee and I bring Giuliana coffee in bed.
God is waiting eagerly to respond with new strength to each little act of self-control, small disciplines of prayer, feeble searching after him. And his children shall be filled if they will only hunger and thirst after what he offers.
I think we fool ourselves and really negate a great deal of history if we think that the oral history of poetry is shorter than the written history of poetry. It's not true. Poetry has a longer oral tradition than it does written.
My father, John Steinbeck, was a man who held human history in great reverence, and in particular the biographies of those people who had risked their lives, their fortunes, and their worldly honor to defend the rights and prerogatives of those who w...
Henry Kissinger once told me he was very concerned about the Internet's impact on people's ability to absorb information in a concentrated way, because we've become accustomed to looking up something, getting a snippet and being satisfied with that -...
I want to take my focus off myself and focus on God. It's like setting your spiritual compass so no matter which way you turn during the day, whatever comes up, then my thoughts go back to Him and whatever He said that morning.
If we as a nation are to break the cycle of poverty, crime and the growing underclass of young people ill equipped to be productive citizens, we need to not only implement effective programs to prevent teen pregnancy, but we must also help those who ...
Professor Henry Jones: Elsa never really believed in the grail. She thought she'd found a prize. Indiana Jones: And what did you find, Dad? Professor Henry Jones: Me? Illumination.
Professor Henry Jones: Those people are trying to kill us! Indiana Jones: [shouts] I know, Dad! Professor Henry Jones: This is a new experience for me. Indiana Jones: It happens to me all the time.
Professor Henry Jones: [after hearing that Indy read the tablet] If only I could have been there with you. Indiana Jones: There were rats, Dad. Professor Henry Jones: [Startled] Rats?
Professor Henry Jones: [accidentally shoots their own plane with the machine gun] Indiana Jones: Dad, are we hit? Professor Henry Jones: More or less. Son, I'm sorry. They got us.
Johnny Hooker: I gave him the breakout just like you said. Henry Gondorff: And? Johnny Hooker: 'S good. He threatened to kill me. Henry Gondorff: Hell, kid, they don't do that, you know you're not getting to 'em.
