In primary school in south-eastern Nigeria, I was taught that Hosni Mubarak was the president of Egypt. I learned the same thing in secondary school. In university, Mubarak was still president of Egypt. I came to assume, subconsciously, that he - and...
Obama has been perhaps the most partisan President since Truman. He hasn't learned to be civil - note his insulting speech to Paul Ryan, who did us the courtesy of scoring a budget. The president has to talk to Republicans when it comes to the debt c...
The process changes slightly from role to role. Obviously, there are different things you're called on to do. You're not digging deep for Basher Tarr like I was for Paul Rusesabagina, but at the end of the day it's still all make-believe and you stil...
Paul Cicero: You know anything about this fucking restaurant business? Sonny Bunz: [Talking to Henry] He knows everything about it. I mean he's in the joint 24 hours a day. I mean another fucking few minutes he could be a stool that's how often he's ...
Paul Edgecomb: We'll be doing this for real tomorrow night and I don't want nobody to remember some stupid joke like that and get it going again. You ever try to not to laugh in church when something funny gets stuck in your head? Same goddamn thing.
Shake: He's been gone awhile, hasn't he? Norm: Who has? Shake: Paul's grandfather. Norm: Oh, he's down the uh... Shake: Oh, down the uh...? Norm: Yeah, down the uh... Shake: Oh, we'll give him a couple minutes, then.
Shake: Well, he just asked if he could have those photos, and Norm said no, and I said, "Well, why not be big about it?" Paul: Yeah, and? Norm: And your grandfather pointed out that Shake was always being taller than me just to spite me!
Paul Rusesabagina: They told me I was one of them, and I... the wine, chocolates, cigars, style... I swallowed it. I swallowed it, I swallowed all of it. And they handed me their shit. I have no... no history. I have no memory. I'm a fool, Tati. Tati...
Paul Avery: Do you know more people die in the East Bay commute every three months than that idiot ever killed? He offed a few citizens, wrote a few letters, then faded into footnote... Not that I haven't been sitting here idly, waiting for you to dr...
In the military I could exercise the power of being automatically respected because of the medals on my chest, not because I had done anything right at the moment to earn that respect. This is pretty nice. It's also a psychological trap that can stop...
There is no battle space the U.S. Military cannot access. They said we couldn't do Afghanistan. We did it with ease. They said we couldn't do Iraq. We did it with 150 combat casualties in six weeks. We did it so fast we weren't prepared for their col...
The only reason I felt like I could sing a song like 'Blown Away' is because I have definitely lived through my fair share of trips to the cellar in the spring. We were no stranger to that. I still ask my mom, 'Is the cellar cleaned out now? Is every...
My mom used to tell me stories at night, read books to me - and I read 'em over and over and over again. And you know what I learned from that? I went back and looked at everything - Why do I like reading the same stories over and over and over again...
Lt. Frederick Manion: Wanted: the Big Ten. Hey. They've got the ten best-dressed dames, the ten top teams, the ten top tunes, and now the ten most wanted. Paul Biegler: Well, don't knock it. That's the American Dream. Those boys made The Grade.
Prayer is the force as real as terrestrial gravity. As a physician, I have seen men, after all other therapy had failed, lifted out of disease and melancholy by the serene effort of prayer. Only in prayer do we achieve that complete and harmonious as...
Being on a book tour is like being on the seesaw when you're a little kid. The excitement is in having someone to play with, and in rising up in the air, but then you're at the mercy of those holding you down, and if it's your older brother, or Paul ...
Victim mentality only creates helplessness, the most maddening, miserable and upsetting of mental states. In fact, it is commonly reported that nothing triggers madness like a sense of helplessness. It is a cousin of paranoia, a sense that the world ...
You'd believe that a patient with hypertension, if you know you have hypertension or diabetes, you would take your drug every day. The compliance rate is more like 30% or 40%. Which means that 60% of patients don't take their drugs, and they actually...
I don't want people mistreating me. I found out when you're vulnerable and your heart's open, then people step on you. You're really stupid for letting that happen. And the only way to counteract that is to be like Wolfman Jack. Because if you do nic...
Early on I saw the plastic quality in colored people and had friends among them; and later was to work from colored models and friends, including Paul Robeson, whose splendid head I worked from in New York. I tried to draw Chinamen in their quarter, ...
I wish I could view the belly that oozes over the top of my pants as a badge of maternal honor. I do try. I make sure that the women whose looks I admire all have sufficient fat reserves to survive a famine, and I make a lot of snide comments about t...
