From the stage, I can reach a large audience, and you learn from being on stage how much a song reaches, what extent of the crowd a song can reach. I write in a way that can reach most of the audience, but I also wanted to have truly intimate moments...
I feel very silly saying to you, Tell me all about yourself, but I wish you would. I want to get to know you." That's not how you get to know people. Don't you know? You can't talk it out, you've got to live into their lives, bad and good. You'll kno...
Don't you worry if everything seems so difficult right now. They will get better, just give it a try. Don't be too harsh on yourself if you seem to be trying & trying but nothing seems to be changing. Don't be annoyed by the multitudes of flaws that ...
Stop…stop, that’s the next generation of fans… How dare you pass judgment on those 12-year-old girls who like vampires! They need to be encouraged because in six years they’ll be 18-year-old girls who like vampires and are into all sorts of g...
I realize that some of you may have come in hopes of hearing tips on how to become a professional writer. I say to you, "If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the art...
If you go back through history, you’ll find that the people who have been most eager to rule, to make the laws, to enforce the laws and to tell everybody exactly how God Almighty wants things here on Earth— those people have forgiven themselves a...
Mother Atkinson thought that every one should have a trade, or something to make a living out of , for rich people may grow poor, you know, and poor people have to work.... so when I saw how happy and independent those young ladies were, I wanted to ...
Marmee: Oh, Jo. Jo, you have so many extraordinary gifts; how can you expect to lead an ordinary life? You’re ready to go out and – and find a good use for your talent. Tho’ I don’t know what I shall do without my Jo. Go, and embrace your lib...
I hate that there'll be moments in my day and I'll be patting down my legs trying to find my phone. I hate how anxious it makes me feel when I don't have it. When I go on holiday, or I go back to Australia, I put my phone in my bag and I don't worry ...
I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I'll be at the table When company comes. Nobody'll dare Say to me, "Eat in the kitchen," Then....
Never stop writing. Whether you’re writing a novel, screen play or just keeping a journal, it’s integral that you make writing a daily process. The proof of the commitment to your craft is just how much time you spend doing it, whether it’s for...
Some of our struggles involve making decisions, while others are a result of the decisions we have made. Some of our struggles result from choices others make that affect our lives. We cannot always control everything that happens to us in this life,...
I prefer to surprise myself as I'm writing. I'm not interested in it if I already know where it's going. So I have only the most general sense of what I'm doing when I start a story. I sometimes have a destination in mind, but how the story is going ...
I remember how beautiful the Merrimac looked to me in childhood, the first true river I ever knew; it opened upon my sight and wound its way through my heart like a dream realized; its harebells, its rocks, and its rapids, are far more fixed in my me...
We are not like the social insects. They have only the one way of doing things and they will do it forever, coded for that way. We are coded differently, not just for binary choices, go or no-go. We can go four ways at once, depending on how the air ...
As someone who sends texts messages more or less non-stop, I enjoy one particular aspect of texting more than anything else: that it is possible to sit in a crowded railway carriage laboriously spelling out quite long words in full, and using an enor...
[T]he strongest defense of the humanities lies not in the appeal to their utility — that literature majors may find good jobs, that theaters may economically revitalize neighborhoods — but rather in the appeal to their defiantly nonutilitarian ch...
You can feel the whole world and still feel lost in it. So many people are in pain-- no matter how smart or accomplished--they cry, they yearn, they hurt. But instead of looking down on things, they look up, which is where I should have been looking,...
All of us know at least one drama queen or drama king. These people love to yell and make a scene when they’re offended. While all of that screaming might make them feel better in the short term, in the long term it does nothing for their careers o...
Many readers simply can't stomach fantasy. They immediately picture elves with broadswords or mighty-thewed barbarians with battle axes, seeking the bejeweled Coronet of Obeisance ... (But) the best fantasies pull aside the velvet curtain of mere app...
Stories about mental aberration and oddity only make sense in context. Just how do people live with someone who is peculiar, gifted, strange or alien? It's odd because there's a little part of me that wants to write about exotic, strange bizarre subj...
