Jacques Derrida is a very important thinker and philosopher who has made serious contributions to both philosophy and literary criticism. Roland Barthes is the one I feel most affinity for, and Michel Foucault, well, his writing influenced my novel, ...
When a million little things go right, that’s called success. Failure functions as the great leveler. When things don’t go as planned, it’s humbling. It’s important to make mistakes along the way, or we would be impossible to live with.
I don't think my parents told me enough how the world doesn't really care about me. I think it's important to tell children that the world doesn't really care about you. You have to fight to be heard.
I suppose I'm always trying to break down the wall between my characters and myself. I'm trying to make the film as expressive and personal as I can, even if I can't explain, for example, how important it is for me to be Jewish.
I don't know if there is any one secret to successful writing, but one important step is to move beyond imitation and discover what you can write that no one else can - that is, find out who you are and write that in an appropriate narrative and styl...
The HoLee model was the first term structure model. I remember reading their paper soon after it was published and as it was fairly different from many of the other papers that I had read, I had to read it quite a few times. I realized that it was a ...
I'm not interested in awards. I never have been. I don't think they are important. Don't get me wrong, if somebody gives me a prize, I thank them as gratefully as I know how, because it's very nice to be given a prize. But I don't think that awards o...
The most important thing to realize is we're not blank slates at birth. We don't start off with nothing in our heads, and then get imprinted entirely by our environment. There's something in our heads on the day we're born, and then we grow up and ma...
And I don't want to begin something, I don't want to write that first sentence until all the important connections in the novel are known to me. As if the story has already taken place, and it's my responsibility to put it in the right order to tell ...
Titles are important; I have them before I have books that belong to them. I have last chapters in my mind before I see first chapters, too. I usually begin with endings, with a sense of aftermath, of dust settling, of epilogue.
It's really important for me to do the fundamentals of this job really, really well. And to let people know that I think the core responsibilities of a member of Congress aren't seeking the national headlines or being the spokesperson on this issue o...
I always start with characters rather than with a plot, which many critics would say is very obvious from the lack of plot in my films - although I think they do have plots - but the plot is not of primary importance to me, the characters are.
I think sometimes with new characters, you can kind of hit a creative valley, and it's important to recognize when you're in that valley so you can get back out and get back to that peak.
I think it's important to be able to say that you did live a normal life and struggled to make ends meet. It all has to do with work ethic and how I apply myself to my awesome job now. I've always been used to working because I've been working since ...
I've always avoided publicity. I've never been good copy at any stage of my life. I don't strive for it, because I don't think it's important whether I'm good copy or not. The two can go together, if that's your personality, but every person on this ...
I have this feeling that as time goes on, we're not getting any more civilized, and we should be. We're still running around like the days of Genghis Khan. There are so many important, better things to do and we need to encourage people to reach into...
I described the CEO job as knowing what to do and getting the company to do what you want. Designing a proper company culture will help you get your company to do what you want in certain important areas for a very long time.
As we have seen, WikiLeaks is a robust organization. During my time in solitary confinement in the basement of a Victorian prison, we continue to release, our media partners continued to write stories. The important revelations from this material con...
I wanted to make sure that I didn't spend all my time in Tokyo. I'm the U.S. ambassador to Japan, not the U.S. ambassador to Tokyo. I thought it was very important to have an understanding of the country as well as to be the representative of the U.S...
You write because you have an idea in your mind that feels so genuine, so important, so true. And yet, by the time this idea passes through the different filters of your mind, and into your hand, and onto the page or computer screen - it becomes dist...
No, you don't have to start your play with a premise. You can start with a character or an incident, or even a simple thought. This thought or incident grows, and the story slowly unfolds itself. You have time to find your premise in the mass of your...
