I used to feel that if I say something's wrong, I have to say how it could be made right. But what I learned from Kurt Vonnegut was that I could write stories that say I may not have a solution, but this is wrong - that's good enough.
I love Lady Gaga, Rihanna - all the pop girls like Katy Perry. I think Miley Cyrus is very talented, too. Apart from the visuals, which you may like or not like, but her music is quite good, actually. 'Wrecking Ball' is quite a good song, and she san...
I am critical of modernity giving science and technology a blank check as if it were the fountain of all truth. That is not true. And I think I may have introduced a word which has now caught on quite a bit, scientism. Science is good. It simply repo...
Those ethical choices often are made every day at a time, minute by minute in ways that you may not even relate to ethics, so I'm going to walk them through the whole story from that perspective and hopefully they'll be able to walk away with somethi...
Some people are surprised that the Republicans are waging a war on women, or that they voted against equal pay for women. I'm not surprised at all. In some ways, it may be a good thing. They're defending the patriarchy, which is a wounded beast! And ...
I have yet to meet very many people in the press who are really, truly interested in writing a good story or getting at the truth. Most press people, when they come into an article, have an angle that they want already, so they need points to support...
Many of us enjoy going to ball games and watching them on television. I am no exception. I love to watch a good athletic contest. If we spend excessive time with sporting events, however, we may neglect things that are much more important.
I hear from patients who say their doctor said, 'If you want to take Vitamin C, go ahead and do it. It won't harm you, and it may do you some good.' More and more physicians are getting convinced about the value of large doses of Vitamin C.
Generally, there are no lightning bolts or magical signs that tell you when it is time to get divorced. When the bad starts outweighing the good on a consistent basis, you may feel that taking the next step is appropriate. It is a very personal decis...
I think if people who are attacking me or against me, if they would just watch one of my films, they would - they may not agree with me politically on all the things I'm saying. But they will know at the end of the film that I love this country and t...
Some find that very optimistic people have benign illusions about themselves. These people may think they have more control, or more skill, than they actually do. Others have found that optimistic people have a good handle on reality. The jury is sti...
We all press buttons in relationships, in our dealings with people, without thinking what it really means. We all knock along without questioning what kind of situation we're in. We may often be in a very good one, but we don't even appreciate the go...
To me, a book is a book. A novel is a novel, and you have hundreds of possibilities, options, and they may all be fine. Charles Dickens or Ingeborg Bachmann, Claude Simon or later writers. The one and only condition is that it has to be good: it has ...
As you may recall, Truman was extremely unpopular when he finally left Washington in 1953, thanks largely to the Korean War. Today, however, he is thought to have been a solidly good president, a 'Near Great' even, in the terminology of those surveys...
I'm usually more concerned with how things sound than how they look on the page. Some people write for the page, and that's a whole other thing. I'm going for what it sounds like right away, so it may not even look good on the page.
The government's desire to expand global trade may be understandable, but we mustn't give away too much. We must tell our elected representatives to at least delay the Canada-China FIPA until it has been examined more thoroughly, and to reconsider th...
Americans are terrified because so many of them have been laid off in recent years and months and they fear that they may be next. Even if they have not been laid off or have not known anyone laid off, they definitely know someone who has lost his ho...
When someone died in the wilderness of frontier America, that person's physical remains were buried and the handcarts continued west, but the mourning survivors had hope for their loved one's eternal soul. However, when someone dies spiritually in th...
People are prone to taking mental shortcuts. They may know that they shouldn't give out certain information, but the fear of not being nice, the fear of appearing ignorant, the fear of a perceived authority figure - all these are triggers, which can ...
I came seriously close to getting married four times, and each time I backed off in fear or for one reason or another. Each occasion was different, but in hindsight when I look at the people involved, it wasn't a bad thing what I did. I think it may ...
People who find that they have a lot of drama in their relationships need to allow themselves to get 'bored'. At first, it will feel excruciating, and they may find themselves confronting a very real fear underneath all that drama: being truly close ...
