Tell the story, gather the events, repeat them. Pattern is a matter of upkeep. Otherwise the weave relaxes back to threads picked up by birds to make their nests. Repeat, or the story will fall and all the king's horses and all the king's men. . . . ...
An alder tree can't become an oak at will. A maple can't pick up its roots like legs, and stride, step by powerful step, along the shore to find the sun. And everything that ever said otherwise--all those years of school, and the plays and moving pic...
The union of their shared lives could be a masterpiece, even if the colors of one piece clashed with another, even if uneven stitches showed, even if, from time to time, they had to pick out seams, realign the pieces, and sew them back together again...
Jack shook his head. 'Books. What is it with women and books? My sisters were the same. They were always buying books for boys they fancied.' Ellie bent down and picked up the stone and put it on the table. 'It's like sending a love letter without ha...
What was so painful about Amy’s death is that I know that there is something I could have done. I could have passed on to her the solution that was freely given to me. Don’t pick up a drink or drug, one day at a time. It sounds so simple; it actu...
When the fisherman bait the hooks, through them into the sea and sits looking at horizon, do not think he is doing nothing. He and all his senses are fully tensed. His eyes monitors the line, his ears picks the slightest sound of the rod, his heart b...
One of the coolest things about touring around, actually, is getting to meet people, and getting to pick up on things that other people like. So many times, people come up to me after a reading and say, 'You must have read this,' or 'You must have se...
In 2011, I did an internship in Seven Dials, a junction in London where seven roads come together. I'd given up on writing after multiple rejections for my first novel, and I was starting to consider a career in publishing instead, but Seven Dials ga...
Everything gets thrown off depending on whether the Packers are playing. I grew up in L.A., and we had a terrible quarterback, Roman Gabriel. When I was 11 years old, I fired him, I fired the Rams, and I picked a quarterback I aspired to be. That was...
Aspiring authors, get this through your head. Cover art serves one purpose, and one purpose only, to get potential customers interested long enough to pick up the book to read the back cover blurb. In the internet age that means the thumb nail image ...
Her Brooklyn accent only comes out when she's angry. This is the best part....I pick at my pancakes while she tells me, simply, "It's ok to change your mind." About a feeling, a person, a promise of love. I can't stay just to avoid contradicting myse...
I have faith in God to put me where I need to be at the right time, and to put on my heart what I’m called to do… Sometimes we’re called to be very proactive about one thing, and then in another season, we’re supposed to let it go, trust God ...
When Reg died and we first looked into getting a new dog, I was adamant we should pick up a mongrel from an animal-rescue shelter. It's not only that they're usually healthier and have better temperaments, they also fit with my world view - I prefer ...
Ronald Reagan knew audiences. It was a key element of his political genius. One of the things at which brilliant politicians are better than mediocre ones is smelling new public concerns over the horizon before they are picked up by polls - before th...
I get an abundance of e-mail every day, some say 'dear Richard, can you call my husband, he weighs 400 pounds...' or 'my 14-year-old is 200 pounds...' or 'I just got divorced, no one wants me, I am 500 pounds.' So I pick up the phone and I call peopl...
I had dinner with Marlene Dietrich in the early 1970s. I went to pick her up and she had someone with her, a dreadful man. He was writing a book about her, and he said to her, 'You're so cold when you perform,' and she said, 'You didn't listen to the...
What I'd love to do would be to bring a person from the past to me. In that case I'd pick Jane Austen, because I'd like to know what really made her tick. It's my opinion that she was inhibited by her family and a desire to do the right thing. Away f...
Americans who have parents raised during the Great Depression or World War II understand how drastically things have changed on the home front. My father did not care a whit whether I liked him, and it would have been unthinkable for him to pick up m...
Economics works great for planning your life when you don't have a work passion, since we tend to assume that your job delivers only money and you trade off job hours with leisure hours. If you think your job will just be a job, pick one that pays we...
I love working if it's with people who are capable of having a good time. People with a little bit of enjoyment of what they do. If it's enormous pressure, and people feel that their lives are at stake, then it's agony. So I try to pick projects wher...
I don't spend a lot of time online. My mother's really good at picking out if she sees a really great review, and she'll forward it to me. She's like my little Internet filter. It's always nice to see something going up; if I want to find something o...
