My so-called bad dress-sense phase happened when I was confused - I think I was taking advice all too often, without listening to my inner voice. Add to the fact that I was a little overweight; so every wrong 'outfit' got compounded all that much.
Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible moment...
I often think of you all, one cannot do what one wants in life. The more you feel attached to a spot, the more ruthlessly you are compelled to leave it, but the memories remain, and one remembers - as in a looking glass, darkly - one's absent friends...
Perhaps there is nothing greater on earth than the sacrifice of youth and beauty, often of high birth, made by the gentle sex in order to work in hospitals for the relief of human misery, the sight of which is so revolting to our delicacy. Peoples se...
Today in Ukraine, many people struggle to survive, older ones often see the breakdown of the Soviet system as a loss of stability and security for average people, and therefore a certain hostility to quickly acquired wealth is from their point of vie...
Glamour invites us to live in a different world. It has to simultaneously be mysterious, a little bit distant - that's why, often in these glamour shots, the person is not looking at the audience, it's why sunglasses are glamorous - but also not so f...
Clothing creates the illusion that bodies fit an aesthetically pleasing norm. And that illusion depends on getting the fit right. Garments that bunch, pull, or sag call attention to figure flaws and often make people look worse than they would withou...
When you think of all the conflicts we have - whether those conflicts are local, whether they are regional or global - these conflicts are often over the management, the distribution of resources. If these resources are very valuable, if these resour...
'In the nineteenth century, we beat the British more than once,' Afghans often told me. 'In the twentieth century, we beat the Russians. In the twenty-first, if we have to, we'll beat the Americans!'
There's a reason that murderous hatred has to be taught--and not just taught, but forcibly implanted. It's not a naturally occurring phenomenon. It is a lie. It is a lie told over and over again--often to people who have no resources and who are deni...
Westerners often laud their children as 'talented' or 'gifted', while Asian parents highlight the importance of hard work. And in fact, research performed by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck has found that the way parents offer approval affects the ...
Yes, I, well, when I write, as often as I can, I try to write as if I'm talking to people. It doesn't always work, and one shouldn't always try it, but I try and write as if I am talking, and trying to engage the reader in conversation.
During the summers, when I'm in Maine, I work at a desk that's located beyond all tendrilly wi-fi reaches. It takes me a few days to break the constant e-mail-checking habit, then I find I don't want to check my e-mail ever, and often don't for days.
The point of my job is to entertain and make it look easy, so I guess it's the parts you don't often see which make me feel proud. All the behind the scenes work, the fears and insecurities I have to face and overcome to improve myself as a person an...
It's hard because people often don't recognise shyness; they think it's just someone being rude. I have had to work to overcome that, especially if I'm meeting my readers at author events, because I don't want them to think I'm snooty or rude.
Writing is work. It takes a lot of contemplation, concentration, and out-and-out sweat. People tend to romanticize it, that somehow your work appears by benefit of some mystical external force. In reality, to be a writer, you have to sit down and wri...
As women, we feel we can't ask for things. There's been a lot of research done recently and, more often than not, if a woman goes in to ask for a raise, she'll get it. But she's thinking, 'Do I deserve it? I've got to give a list of why I deserve it....
I think pain is a very - it's an extremely hard thing to empathize moment to moment. And you often don't remember your own pain, you know, that moment that you broke a limb or you burned yourself or, I think, this is a common thing that women talk ab...
War reporters are often seen as a wild bunch of thrill-seekers who wade into danger zones simply for the sake of the adrenalin high the settings inevitably provide. But this one-dimensional explanation leaves out the core of the story, which is that ...
Cameras help to minimize collateral damage, and very often, without a camera a missile cannot fire. Certainly, without a camera a drone can't function, which means that the very ways in which we wage war are determined in part by how cameras work and...
When you are on assignment, you stick to the facts, limit your vision, and often cut out the most revealing material. There is no texture, no shades of gray. In fiction, you can bring the reader on the perilous journey with your characters as they di...
