One of the maddening ironies of writing books is that it leaves so little time for reading others'. My bedside is piled with books, but it's duty reading: books for book research, books for review. The ones I pine for are off on a shelf downstairs.
Due to the sweeping time frame and the voices moving back and forth, the outline for 'The Invention of Wings' was the strangest one I've ever done. I created six large, separate outlines, one for each part of the book, and hung them around my study.
Dr. Alan Grant: [the Triceratops] Ellie, this one was always my favorite when I was a kid. And now I've seen one, its the most beautiful thing I ever saw.
When I write my books, actually, I'm known for very logical rule-based magic systems. I write with one foot in fantasy and one foot in science fiction.
You will soon find that I am a bit obsessive about my work. And that is a little sad, one often feels strangely restricted, not finding time to simmer, although one actually has many interests.
Prior to going to college, I had a pretty strong accent, and that was one of the things I had to work on a lot. I went to North Carolina School of the Arts; my speech teacher... that was one of the things we really had to work on over the years, and ...
Bakers get excited over aprons. I love the soft cotton ones with pockets like my gramma and mom wore. They always kept a hankie tucked in one pocket, which wasn't sanitary, but was comforting to the child who needed a tear or nose wiped.
I started classical and operatic lessons when I was 8 and become an operatic singer and went to competition. I write my own music. A lot of the songs, growing up, I was into writing dark stories and poems, and one day I started putting melodies to th...
I realized that, all along, my theory was right: Make music that you want to hear, and instead of having fans that one day might criticize or abandon you, your fans aren't even fans. They're people with tastes similar to yours. They're friends you ha...
One day when I have a band I will have a band name, but since it's just me I feel it should just be my name. For me it doesn't make much sense since the music is from me and about me. I haven't ever been in a band.
My favorite workouts are the ones that don't feel like I'm working out! So, dance is a big one. Another is any kind of isolated moves, like ballet moves. Anything that works the glutes and legs - sign me up! And I like to blast the music. I have to g...
In the morning, I have certain aspirations. One of my goals is to avoid looking at the computer or checking e-mail for at least an hour after I wake up. I also try to avoid alarm clocks as much as possible, because it's just nice to wake up without o...
I like to edit my sentences as I write them. I rearrange a sentence many times before moving on to the next one. For me, that editing process feels like a form of play, like a puzzle that needs solving, and it's one of the most satisfying parts of wr...
If I could get any animal it would be a dolphin. I want one so bad. Me and my mom went swimming with dolphins and I was like, 'How do we get one of those?' and she was like, 'You can't get a dolphin. What are you gonna do, like, put it in your pool?'
I remember when I was 11, I told my mom, 'One day I'm going to buy you a house.' And she said, 'Boy, don't you be making promises you can't keep.' I was like: 'No, Ma, it's not a promise. I'm going to buy you a house one day.'
I never cared about making one coherent masterpiece with a conventional narrative. I always wanted my movies to have images falling from all directions in a vaudevillian way. If you didn't like what was happening in one scene, you could just snooze t...
In America, we have so many movies and so much media about the Islamic world, the sub-continental world, but it's not a conversation, it's a monologue. It's always from one point of view. 'If we don't tell our own stories, no one will tell them' is m...
You are the one who wakes up the most beautiful illusions in me and you are the one who makes me believe in a better world, so you will always have a special place in my heart.
And who knows? Somewhere out there in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow my footsteps, and preside over the White House as the president's spouse. I wish him well!
I was once hired to write a column for 'The Guardian' and then got fired before I'd submitted my first one. That was unusual. Most newspapers wait until I've written at least one piece for them before firing me.
I have my own stories. A few are known and some untold. Be a tragic one or a comedy one, stories are meant to end at a certain point. Stories... teach us whether we are the option or we are comparing.