There's always a slight tension when you sell a book to Hollywood, especially a nonfiction book. The author wants his story told intact; the nonfiction author wants it told accurately.
The entire federal budget for landslide research is $3.5 million a year - far less than the property value lost on a single day when 17 mansions slid down a hill in 2005 in Laguna Beach, Calif.
My concern is to keep religion and the state separated. I don't think that religion and politics go together. When you see political decisions colored by religion, decisions that affect us all... I thought: 'I do not want to go back to medieval times...
In Los Angeles, parenting is a competitive sport. From Beverly Hills baby boutiques to kids' yoga classes, L.A. fuses high style, industrial-strength materialism, and parental outsourcing into our own unique version of child-rearing.
In a world where people are hungry for quick fixes and sound bites, for instant gratification, there's no patience for the long, slow rebuilding process: implementing after-school programs, hiring more community workers to act as mentors, adding more...
And the banks - hard to believe in a time when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created - are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.
There is a sacred horror about everything grand. It is easy to admire mediocrity and hills; but whatever is too lofty, a genius as well as a mountain, an assembly as well as a masterpiece, seen too near, is appalling.
One of my favorite expressions ever uttered by a player is Roy Campanella's line about how, in order to be a major-league player, you have to have a lot of little boy in you.
When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, And the dimpling stream runs laughing by; When the air does laugh with our merry wit, And the green hill laughs with the noise of it.
When I finished grad school, I sort of fell into journalism. Someone mentioned that there was an entry-level job at the Reuters News Agency. I applied, and, to my amazement, I got the job.
The Arab spring was not as radical as the French or Iranian revolutions. It did not pull out the deeply entrenched roots of the state. Instead, it was satisfied to replace the top of the pyramid with newly elected, but inexperienced, leaders.
What I like to call 'journalism of depth' is the media that regards the collective conscience of the masses to be its point of departure. It is the media that believes, as a matter of principle, in the potential capabilities of the people and respect...
I do believe, given the heritage of Al Jazeera itself in Arabic and in English, I think Al Jazeera will succeed in introducing another perspective on the news that the American market is in need for.
To cheapen the lives of any group of men, cheapens the lives of all men, even our own. This is a law of human psychology, or human nature. And it will not be repealed by our wishes, nor will it be merciful to our blindness.
How did it happen that their lips came together? How does it happen that birds sing, that snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that the dawn whitens behind the stark shapes of trees on the quivering summit of the hill? A kiss, and all was said.
I got my start in the 'New York Times' because I used to read Stuart Elliot, the advertising columns. I still do. And I read him so religiously, I wanted to work for him before I died.
One common puzzle for the security-minded is how to work with confidential data on the road. Sometimes you can't bring your laptop, or don't want to. But working on somebody else's machine exposes you to malware and leaves behind all kinds of electro...
Newt Gingrich had to work hard - getting Republican candidates to sign the Contract with America - to nationalize the election that swept Republicans to victory in 1994. A Democratic anti-Tea Party campaign would do that for the Republicans - nationa...
Maybe people have no idea how much work is behind a picture. It can seem very effortless, but there is a lot of work. It's exactly like doing ballet. It's hours and hours, but when you go onstage, it's just the pleasure of dancing.
A lot of white-collar work requires less of the routine, rule-based, what we might call algorithmic set of capabilities, and more of the harder-to-outsource, harder-to-automate, non-routine, creative, juristic - as the scholars call it - abilities.
Academics, who work for long periods in a self-directed fashion, may be especially prone to putting things off: surveys suggest that the vast majority of college students procrastinate, and articles in the literature of procrastination often allude t...
