The one author who has influenced my writing the most is the English writer John Fowles, who wrote 'The French Lieutenant's Woman,' 'The Magus,' 'The Collector,' and other novels. None of his books is like any other. He continually challenges himself...
I don't think the law exists to arrive at the truth. If it did, we wouldn't have exclusionary rules, we wouldn't have presumptions of innocence, we wouldn't have proof beyond reasonable doubt. There's an enormous difference between the role of truth ...
I think it's too fast to say that all sci-fi ultimately winds up having some place in science. On the other hand, imaginative minds working outside of science as storytellers certainly have come upon ideas that, with the passing decades, have either ...
My grandmother is still a woman who worries about what she looks like when she goes outside. She's from that era, and I can remember saying to her, 'Grandmother, we're just going to the grocery store.' And she'd be like, 'I've got to fix my face!' Yo...
Music is pretty intimate stuff and I can only work with very few people: Gonzalez being one, Mocky being another and, on a completely different level, Broken Social Scene. With Broken Social Scene it's not one-on-one, it's a one-on-12. It's very heal...
I know that often times a lot of people who work in music, whether they be labels and so on or even artists, want personal recognition. We want to be recognized for something, for what we did. I'd rather my song be recognized for what it's doing and ...
I maintain, despite the moment's evidence against the claim, that we are born and grow up with a fondness for each other, and we have genes for that. We can be talked out of it, for the genetic message is like a distant music, and some of us are hard...
When I started out as a music journalist, at the end of the 1980s, it was generally assumed that we were living through the lamest music era the world would ever see. But those were also the years when hip-hop exploded, beatbox disco soared, indie ro...
From my childhood, I remember a tiny old woman named Mary, made pale and almost translucent by time. Mary's childhood memories extended back to the confusing and violent finale of the Civil War, and she told stories of brutal murders in those days an...
Our goal is to tell people about the International Space Station. I think very rarely people look up 250 miles and think, What are those guys working on, what are those men and women doing at this moment... They're living and doing regular things, bu...
My mom told me to stay away from gangs. But if you're asking me about immigration reform, it must accomplish two objectives: Border security must be first, and it must be more than a promise. We have to import workers, not welfare. Anyone who wants t...
When I was a kid, there were no credit cards. Instead, retailers offered layaway plans. My mom would go to a store, such as a furniture outlet, choose the sofa she wanted, and put it on layaway. That meant she put a little money down to hold the sofa...
The truth is that many powerful guys have fooled around while working for the people. Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Warren Harding to name just a few. Grover Cleveland even fathered a child outside of marriage. We all know these things happ...
Aron Ralston: [to camera] What I could really use is about 20 meters of static wrap rope, 9.8 mil. Uh, three or four pulleys, a rack of carabiners, a sling, power drill, and bolt kit. Oh, and uh, eight burly men to do all the hauling.
Juror #3: [to Juror #8 about the El-Train drowning out the supposed death threat] You're talkin' about a matter of *seconds!* Nobody can be *that* accurate! Juror #8: Well, I think testimony that can put a boy into the electric chair *should* be that...
Byron McElroy: If you're gonna kill me, just as soon get to it. Ben Wade: I ain't gonna kill you. Not like this. Byron McElroy: Won't change a thing, lettin' me live. I'll come for you. Ben Wade: I'd be disappointed if you didn't.
Jackie Robinson: You want a player who doesn't have the guts to fight back? Branch Rickey: No. I want a player who's got the guts *not* to fight back. Jackie Robinson: You give me a uniform, you give me a number on my back, I'll give you the guts.
English Teacher: Last and simple question. Where is the father? Rene: Ze fazer... English Teacher: No. The father. Rene: Ze fazer. English Teacher: No, the tip of the tongue between the teeth. As if you had a lisp. Father. Rene: Fazer. English Teache...
Tom: That was actually my nickname in college. They called me "Perfectly Adequate" Hanson. [Starts to take a drink of wine] Summer: They used to call me "Anal Girl". [Tom nearly gags on his drink from that and looks at her like "What?"] Summer: I was...
[as everyone is madly trying to identify the problem from instrument readings] Jim Lovell: Houston, we are venting something out into space. I can see it outside window one right now. It's definitely a... a gas of some sort. [pause] Jim Lovell: It's ...
Charlie Kaufman: The script I'm starting, it's about flowers. Nobody's ever done a movie about flowers before. So, so there are no guidelines... Donald Kaufman: What about "Flowers for Algernon"? Charlie Kaufman: Well, that's not about flowers. And i...
