By the end of the 1980s, Seattle had taken on the dangerous lustre of a promised city. The rumour had gone out that if you had failed in Detroit you might yet succeed in Seattle - and that if you'd succeeded in Seoul, you could succeed even better in...
Creativity doesn’t come from glancing quickly at your Twitter feed while in line at Starbucks. It comes from deep thought. It comes from voraciously reading books—long books that require focused attention. It comes from meaningful discourse with ...
Self-dealing, essentially, occurs when managers run companies to line their own pockets instead of those of the companies' owners. It's been a perennial problem in American capitalism and became a real dilemma when America moved toward a model in whi...
In 2008, Barack Obama did get Democrats hyperventilating, whipped up to a creamy froth, while John McCain creaked ahead like a cranky granddad whom Republicans let move to the front of the buffet line, deferring to seniority, as they had in 1996, whe...
You know, I remember Career Day in high school. I remember plumbers and lawyers... I don't remember a booth where you could sign up to learn how to shoot chickens out of a cannon at the windshield of an airplane, 'cause there would have been a line a...
I'm not one of those kind of people who does the observational 'Hey, don't you hate it when you're at the grocery store and the line's long and the cash register starts taking too long.' I don't really do that kind of stuff. I'm heavy on persona, and...
[first lines] Girl at Security Gate: Flight 710 to Cabo San Lucas, now boarding Gate 103, first class only. Flight 710, Cabo San Lucas, now boarding Gate 103. First class only. Jackie Brown: [greeting passengers] Buenos dias. Welcome aboard. Welcome ...
Please don't think that I am one of those squishy types who can't handle reality. I have plenty of real-world things to deal with all the time. I have deadlines, meetings, I answer the phone, I get turned down, I wait in lines and am forced to pass f...
When I was a kid, phone calls were a premium commodity; only the very coolest kids had a phone line of their own, and long-distance phone calls were made after eleven, when the rates went down, unless you were flamboyant with your spending. Then phon...
[last lines] [subtitled version] Michael: Nice one, Dad. Good speech. Well done. But I think you'll have to go now so we can eat our breakfast. Faderen: Of course, of course. Faderen: [to his wife] Coming? Moderen: I'll stay here.
Faye: You're gonna take the entire world down with you... but why? That's insane. Vincent: You think so? Is there an indelible line dividing sanity from insanity... Or do they change, one into the other at the slightest change of events? We'll find o...
[first lines] Newsreader: Day 1,000 of the Siege of Seattle. Newsreader: The Muslim community demands an end to the Army's occupation of mosques. Newsreader: The Homeland Security bill is ratified. After eight years, British borders will remain close...
[first lines] Sarah: [voiceover] People once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens that a terrible sadness is carried with it and the soul can't rest. Then sometime...
[first lines] Ace Rothstein: [voice-over] When you love someone, you've gotta trust them. There's no other way. You've got to give them the key to everything that's yours. Otherwise, what's the point? And for a while, I believed, that's the kind of l...
Pat Webb: Are we certain that you want the gamin' control board eyeballing your record and your gangster pals like Nicky Santoro? Ace Rothstein: I think you're way out of line talking to me like that. What your saying is libelous, and you're in no po...
[last lines] Ralphie as Adult: [narrating] Next to me in the blackness lay my oiled blue steel beauty. The greatest Christmas gift I had ever received, or would ever receive. Gradually, I drifted off to sleep, pranging ducks on the wing and getting o...
[Last Lines] Caesar: War has... already begun. Ape started war. And human... Human will not forgive. You must go... before fighting begins. I am sorry... my friend. Malcolm: I thought we had a chance. Caesar: I did too.
[first lines] Florida Prosecutor: Go on, Barbara. Barbara: We go back to our homeroom for dismissal. Unless you have a pass for sports or somethin'. Florida Prosecutor: And is that what you did on the day in question? Barbara: No. Mr. Gettys asked me...
[last lines] Casares: [voice over narration] What is a ghost? A tragedy condemned to repeat itself time and again? An instant of pain, perhaps. Something dead which still seems to be alive. An emotion suspended in time. Like a blurred photograph. Lik...
[first lines] Commentator: August 1962 was a stormy time for France. Many people felt that President Charles de Gaulle had betrayed the country by giving independence to Algeria. Extremists, mostly from the Army, swore to kill him in revenge. They ba...
[first lines] Margot Mary Wendice: let me get you another drink. Mark, before Tony comes I ought to explain something. Mark Halliday: Yes, I've been waiting for that. Margot Mary Wendice: I haven't told him anything about us.
