Second novels are bears. As are other people's expectations for them. I think taking the time you need with the second book is key. Writers spend years and years on their first novels and then are often expected to turn out a second at warp speed, a ...
Here in Silicon Valley, I have taken part in hundreds of conversations trying to convince people to dive in and become entrepreneurs. All too often, innovators with good, safe, jobs are unwilling to put their family's access to health care at risk by...
I'm not a natural employer. I live very privately, and we like our privacy at home. To be sitting and talking with your wife or your family and to have somebody walking around and you're ignoring them, I couldn't handle that at all. I can barely hand...
That's probably fair to say that there is a certain amount of pressure to deliver your next role when you do have a fan base as potent as the 'Battlestar Galactica' family. There was certainly a lot of curiosity to all of us on that show - what are y...
Respect can be as elusive as the unicorn. I know something of this because I write books that are set in the Middle Ages, and the historical novel is often seen as the unwanted stepchild in the fictional family. I know even more about respect - or th...
In many a piece of music, it's the pause or the rest that gives the piece its beauty and its shape. And I know I, as a writer, will often try to include a lot of empty space on the page so that the reader can complete my thoughts and sentences and so...
While Washington pays lip service to the challenges facing small businesses, it repeatedly chooses its own expansion over results. In effect, government has become a huge silent partner in all businesses, often taking a majority of the profits and fo...
I often thought I was in the wrong business. I was pretty seriously thinking of tossing it in before I shot Shine. I do not know why. I was pretty restless, I had been through a bad period of stress induced anxiety - panic attacks - and I was not sur...
Business needs to move to adopt much more scalable pull platforms. When we talk about pull platforms, often people focus on one level of pull, which is what we call access. It's simply, if I have a need, I can make a request, get the resource or the ...
It's far too much to say that effective hoping is the only - or even the biggest - part of what it takes to succeed. If 14% of business productivity can be attributed to hope, that means 86% is dependent on raw talent, fickle business cycles, the qua...
I started in business journalism from the outside, so when I started writing about markets and business, I was struck by the fact that markets seemed to work well even though people are often irrational, lack good information and are not perfect in t...
I love my family very much. I wish I could see them a little more often than I do. But we understand because we're a show business family and we all work.
I'm a pretty organised packer, laying out everything beforehand, as I don't like to take extra stuff. I've got a good eye for judging how much I can stuff into one suitcase. I've often not brought the right items, but I'd never avoided a chance to sh...
I must learn to love the fool in me - the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries.
I don't eschew autobiographical writing, but I'm not interested in mine to be so straightforward. The things that tend to move me the most are often those that I have to figure out its meaning for myself. The human being's ability to make a metaphor ...
It's really cool to know that you've put something together that isn't for a particular audience. It's so often that a TV show can really only speak to one sect of the population, and this really is something that appeals to a worldwide fan base. Peo...
Dad often told me, 'My job is to help my boss do his job and make him look good.' That was my dad's objective. Everything about the way he conducted himself was to communicate support for his superiors and respect for his coworkers. The way he dresse...
Many original occupiers believe the political system has become so corrupt that even participating in it, engaging with it, corrupts the movement. I understand what they are saying. But often, change does come more quickly from the inside rather than...
You should breathe deeply and chant, 'Money will easily and effortlessly flow into my life' as often as you can every day. Things will start to change after a month. If you believe you will be financially secure, then you are opening yourself up to c...
I often quote Ronald Reagan, who is pretty close to my favorite President ever, I will have to say that, but one of my favorite remarks he ever made was that when you look at Federal programs, there is nothing so close to eternal life on Earth as a F...
Common sense tells us that the government's attempts to solve large problems more often create new ones. Common sense also tells us that a top-down, one-size-fits-all plan will not improve the workings of a nationwide health-care system that accounts...
