I think way back, the '20s or the '30s, when Kodak came out with the Brownie and they put a list of instructions on the box, like how to use this thing, I think someone arbitrarily said, 'Make sure the person in the photograph is smiling.' And we wen...
I won't look online. The whole fan thing makes me self-conscious, which is not to say I don't appreciate it or understand it. If Mickey Mantle were around, I'm sure I'd have a ton of questions to ask him that might make him uncomfortable. I get it. T...
If the years have taught me one thing it's that those who care are always scarce. Those who genuinely care; not the acquaintances, false friends or those with similar aspirations. The few who seek your company, the souls who would plainly step off th...
Writing is a concentrated form of thinking...a young writer sees that with words he can place himself more clearly into the world. Words on a page, that's all it takes to help him separate himself from the forces around him, streets and people and pr...
When Phil and I hit that one spot where I call it 'The Everly Brothers,' I don't know where it is. 'Cause it's not me and it's not him. It's the two of us together. I sing the lead, and so I can drift off. Then we'll come back in together and the who...
As a scholar, you don't want to repeat yourself, ever. You're supposed to say it once, publish it, and then it's published, and you don't say it again. If someone comes and gives a scholarly paper about something they've already published, that's jus...
I guess I'm just the kind of person who likes to do it all. It's fun to put on the writer's hat and go hide by myself with my computer for six months. Then it's fun to come out and put the director hat on and deal with all the things that a director ...
I can still picture myself riding in the back of a Bronco to a field party after a rainstorm. My mama will kill me for saying this, but my first beer, I was 15 and I didn't know what to do with it. I thought you were supposed to chug it. So I just do...
None of us are bad people. We float around and we run across each other and we learn about ourselves, and we make mistakes and we do great things. We hurt others, we hurt ourselves, we make others happy and we please ourselves. We can and should forg...
Identity We live in a world where people define themselves by occupation. And we identify ourselves by what material possessions we have. House,cars,money,clothes etc. Take away all that and you lost your identity. Sadly to say these are the things t...
If you have put your faith in Christ and have spent significant time in the Word of God, the tough times can be like a magnet that draws you to the Lord Jesus. Nothing is going to happen - ever - that will catch Jesus Christ by surprise. He is able t...
I thought I was growing wings— it was a cocoon. I thought, now is the time to step into the fire— it was deep water. Eschatology is a word I learned as a child: the study of Last Things; facing my mirror—no longer young, the news—always of de...
There are many things that can keep you in a relationship. Fear of being alone, Fear of disrupting the arrangement of your life.A decision to settle for something that's okay. Because you don;t know if you can get any better. Or maybe there's the irr...
His heart pounding with fear and elation, and his head humming with the fierce certainty of a sure thing, he kissed her. She responded as though for her too a certainty had proved out, and in the midst of her hair and lips and long arms encircling hi...
And that's one thing that helps me is I learn it blandly, vanilla, then I don't try to act it too soon because you start to act it, and you kind of go away from what the next sentence is, what the next paragraph is. So get it down so it kind of can -...
I couldn't give away my husband's shoes. I could give away other things, but the shoes - I don't know what it was about the shoes, but a lot of people have mentioned to me that shoes took on more meaning than we generally think they do... their attac...
Also, I think having that comic gene kind of makes you look at things in a different way. If you take yourself so seriously, eventually you end up one of those people having a 'Do Not Disturb' sign on their lives. You see them drawing the curtains an...
In the creative industries, there are few things more exciting than a zinger - a thought, idea, line, plot device - anything really, that just totally works in a fundamentally new and fresh way. It's like a uniquely lovely melody or a new taste idea ...
Why are you leaving me? He wrote, I do not know how to live. I do not know either but I am trying. I do not know how to try. There were some things I wanted to tell him. But I knew they would hurt him. So i buried them and let them hurt me
I’m going to be a model of fearlessness. And when people spew fear, I’m going to stand with an invisible shield around me and let their comments zing off my shield, and I will say to myself ‘not in my world!’ because in my world, people do ta...
Johnny Flora Author of "The Spell of Zalanon and Wake Co." Quote Du Jour; Fare better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer ...
