When I was growing up, if there was a Young Adult section of my town's library, I missed it. I wandered right from 'The Babysitter's Club' over to Stephen King. His books were big and fat and they seemed important. I eventually worked my way through ...
Everything beautiful is golden and strewn with pearls. Even golden people live here. But misfortune is a dark power, a monstrous, cannibalistic giant, who is, however, vanquished, because a good woman, who happily knows how to avert disaster, stands ...
I'll never lose my roots. I think I'm too close to my family for that. I still make my trip back to Nebraska every year, and I still love going back to Texas where I grew up, as well. I've just kind of had to mature a little bit more and get used to ...
Charles Darwin and I and you broke off from the family tree from chimpanzees about five million years ago. They're still our closest genetic kin. We share 98.8 percent of the genes. We share more genes with them than zebras do with horses. And we're ...
I've only read three books by Stephen King. When I was 10 I read 'The Long Walk,' one of his pseudonymous Bachman books. In my early 20s, while trapped on a family vacation, I read 'The Dark Half,' which taught me a word I have never forgotten: psych...
I saw my first two Broadway shows when I was 4 years old, 'The Lion King' and 'Beauty and the Beast,' and after both of them I came home and reenacted the entirety of the shows on my living room table for my family and friends. I started doing that a...
One day, I went to buy something for my dad at the shops, and I heard a song by Nat King Cole called 'Stardust Melody.' It was like I went into a trance or something. I forgot all about my dad sending me to the shop. When I got home, I explained to h...
I'm the most inappropriate dad. I curse in front of my kids and their friends. I let my kids watch R-rated movies. I'll walk by the movie theater and say, 'Let's go see that,' and my kids will say, 'No, it's rated R. It's not appropriate for kids.' I...
You cannot hear the name Martin Luther King, Jr., and not think of death. You might hear the words 'I have a dream,' but they will doubtlessly only serve to underscore an image of a simple motel balcony, a large man made small, a pool of blood. For a...
I think my greatest victory was every time I walked out there, I gave it everything I had. I left everything out there. That's what I'm most proud of. I can't go win Wimbledon anymore, so if what I've done in the past is not good enough, let it go. B...
I used to get nervous, you know if my parents would come watch. And then I would get nervous if my friends came and watched. Today it's not a problem anymore actually, because now I enjoy it. I see that they, you know, respect me immensely, and I try...
To handle that stardom, the red carpets, the photo shoots, people all of a sudden recognizing you and following you in everyday life, it's a bit weird. It's strange, and it can have funny effects on you in terms of do you like it or don't you like it...
I think that not only do saints make poor role models, they are incapable in one sense of identifying radically with those of us who are mere mortals. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s mortality says to us that here's a figure who got up every day of his lif...
Firstly you must always implicitly obey orders, without attempting to form any opinion of your own regarding their propriety. Secondly, you must consider every man your enemy who speaks ill of your king; and thirdly you must hate a Frenchman as you h...
Tennis is basically a game where you try to create an opportunity for yourself to finish the point, because you can't wait for the opponent to miss anymore. Well, if you create an opportunity and don't take advantage of it, you let the opponent back ...
I had true rivalries. Not only did I want to beat my opponent, but I didn't want to let him up, either. I had a rivalry with Mac, Lendl, Borg. Everybody knew there was tension between us, on court and off. That's what's really ingrained in my mind: '...
The true purpose of life is the perfection of humanity through individual effort, under the guidance of God's inspiration. Real life is response to the best within us. To be alive only to appetite, pleasure, pride, money-making, and not to goodness a...
Forty-two years after Dr. King was murdered, we are still a nation of inequality. People of color, women, gays, lesbians, and others are still treated as second-class citizens. Yes, things have changed but we have still not achieved equality among al...
Perhaps, indeed, there are no truly universal ethics: or to put it more precisely, the ways in which ethical principles are interpreted will inevitably differ across cultures and eras. Yet, these differences arise chiefly at the margins. All known so...
Even if I play backgammon with my coach, I hate to lose. I won't talk to him for, like, an hour. So imagine how it feels when you lose at tennis. That makes me determined not to lose because I hate it so much. Even at a set down and match point, I al...
I was very aware of office politics because I was so baffled by them. So much so goes unsaid. No one says 'you're a cheeky so-and-so,' no one says 'you're so moody,' nobody ever confronts anyone else about anything. But I'm very crass, and I'm very c...
