When very large stars die, they create temperatures so high that protons begin to fuse in all sorts of exotic combinations, to form all the elements of the periodic table. If, like me, you're wearing a gold ring, it was forged in a supernova explosio...
As a form of escapism, yearning for the 20th century is understandable, but in practice it would be horrible - sort of like going on a holiday promising yourself you could go without the Internet, only to crumble and walk in a daze to the local Inter...
The subject of British abolitionism has long been controversial, complex, and even baffling. It also raises the issue of moral progress in history - whether groups of reformers and even nations can succeed in eliminating deeply entrenched forms of hu...
I doubt if a single individual could be found from the whole of mankind free from some form of insanity. The only difference is one of degree. A man who sees a gourd and takes it for his wife is called insane because this happens to very few people.
I met Kevin when I was 19, at a Second City workshop. We were paired up together in the first class I went to. By the end of the class we formed our improv group, and over the next three years we performed leading up to the formation of The Kids in t...
In my day, the only people who achieved real independence were my father, Mary Pickford and Charles Chaplin, who, with D. W. Griffith, formed United Artists. Other than that, everybody belonged to the big studios. They had no say in their own careers...
It's absolutely of no importance who or what V was under the mask. He isn't a who or a what, he's an idea. The thing is, you couldn't continue it. Now and then the idea of a sequel has been raised, in vague forms, but I think it would be a bad idea. ...
A stage play is basically a form of uber-schizophrenia. You split yourself into two minds - one being the protagonist and the other being the antagonist. The playwright also splits himself into two other minds: the mind of the writer and the mind of ...
I've always loved painting, although I never show anyone what I've done. Mainly because I don't do it well. But it's like a form of visual diary for me. A way of fixing things in my mind.
For in spite of itself any movement that thinks and acts in terms of an ‘ism becomes so involved in reaction against other ‘isms that it is unwittingly controlled by them. For it then forms its principles by reaction against them instead of by a ...
The term 'epitaph' itself means 'something to be spoken at a burial or engraved upon a tomb.' When an epitaph is a poem written for a tomb, and appears in a book, we are aware that we are not reading it in its proper form: we are reading a reproducti...
We must rid this nation of the United Nations, which provides the communist conspiracy with a headquarters here on our own shores, and which actually makes it impossible for the United States to form its own decisions about its conduct and policies i...
Causes brings over 140 million people together to form the world's largest giving community. The belief that everyone has something to give is at the core of what we do; people just need a little inspiration, and to know that whoever they are, there ...
I think everyone's pretty much the same underneath. The collective unconscious is a real thing. There's only a few emotions, and we all have them. There's, like, seven emotions. So personal is universal. Everyone experiences confusion, joy and pain, ...
A guy applied to the CIA And in his application form, he left every question blank When the recruiter asked him why he did this, the guy responded: “If you don’t hire me, it doesn't matter anyway But if you hire me, the answers are all classified
I enjoy all forms of writing, but playwrighting is what made me what I am. Not only working with the ghosts of Chekhov and Ibsen and Shakespeare, but what it is to be a playwright, to be interacting with human beings in the live theater and affect pe...
What we are witnessing is the birth of something I call 'Polisdigitocracy.' This is a form of government that counts participation and transparency as its cornerstones and uses technology as its guide. The digital revolution is allowing democracy to ...
The crisis of democracy in the West is not the result of falling in love with another system. In Europe and America people who are disillusioned with democracy do not dream about the Chinese model or any other form of authoritarian rule. They do not ...
Sometimes it takes a wake-up call, doesn't it, to alert us to the fact that we're hurrying through our lives instead of actually living them; that we're living the fast life instead of the good life. And I think, for many people, that wake-up call ta...
Once upon a time there was a Queen who had a son so ugly and so misshapen that it was long disputed whether he had human form. A fairy who was at his birth said, however, that he would be very amiable for all that, since he would have uncommon good s...
I'm a child of the '80s, so like everyone else, I love all those classic, formative movies - 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off,' 'Pretty in Pink,' 'Sixteen Candles,' 'Dirty Dancing,' etc., with 'St. Elmo's Fire' and 'The Breakfast Club' existing on a separat...
