One of these days in your travels, a guy is going to show you a brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken. Then this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the jack of spades jump out of this brand-new deck of cards and s...
...And I wish that while walking in your life's lane, you come across and walk with dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground. Let...
Economics. "Something humans invented and then lost control of, it isn't real, it's not like gravity and we could evolve the economic process to make sense, but can't because we would all lose money if we did. Hysterical scientific exerts aside, it d...
And the best, most redeeming, exciting thing I can imagine, from the smashed-up, broken place I've been, is that something beautiful could blossom out of the wreckage... This is what I know: God can make something beautiful out of anything, out of da...
When bodies talk, a hand brushing across a face declares love the tongue never speaks. When bodies talk, eyes make promises and lips keep them in the silent transfer of vows of the heart. When bodies talk, a steady stare and firm glance becomes a rod...
This is newness: every little tawdry Obstacle glass-wrapped and peculiar, Glinting and clinking in a saint's falsetto. Only you Don't know what to make of the sudden slippiness, The blind, white, awful, inaccessible slant. There's no getting up it by...
Oh thrice fools are we who like new-born princes weeping in the cradle know not that there is a kingdom before them then let our Lord's sweet hand square us and hammer us and strike off the knots of pride self-love and world-worship and infidelity th...
I need to feel as if everything is clean and in its proper place before I can even attempt to write one word. At least, that's what I tell myself. I make the bed, I put away the dishes, maybe I dust, maybe I do the laundry, maybe I go to the post off...
I understood something way back when I was on 'Three's Company.' When I got the part, I was flat broke. I was so happy to get the part, but I kept thinking, 'Ugh - dumb blondes are so irritating; how do I make her likable?' I think that I achieved th...
The more I consider it, the more the U.S. Constitution becomes one of the most "God-awful" works ever created by man. Please explain "more perfect" alongside the constitutional make-up of everything left in its wake. What about the story of a girl in...
You try to make the most of each day. I'm not big into setting real specific goals. I think, really, if you just focus on every day - and I know that's the oldest cliche in the book, but it really is true. Day 1 of camp means just as much as Day 17 o...
What I'm seeing is a generation that says consistently, 'I would rather text than make a telephone call.' Why? It's less risky. I can just get the information out there. I don't have to get all involved; it's more efficient. I would rather text than ...
Happiness was never important. The problem is that we don't know what we really want. What makes us happy is not to get what we want. But to dream about it. Happiness is for opportunists. So I think that the only life of deep satisfaction is a life o...
Once upon a time in the land of Shinar, God came down to see the city and the tower. People were united and spoke in one language. Then God confound their language and caused them scattered all over the planet earth. I believe, because of our technol...
Fantasy writing must be grounded in both truth and life experience if it is to work. It can be as inventive and creative as the writer can make it, a whirlwind of images and plot twists, but it cannot be built on a foundation of air. The world must b...
I remember at The Quilted Giraffe, when I was when working there to try out for the sous-chef position. I really wanted it, and the woman working the line next to me kept messing up and making me look bad. The last day of my kitchen trail, I just sai...
Things may need to stay in the darkness for some time. There is power in darkness: the power of gestation, deep dreaming, and the sweetness of night. However, sometimes darkness obscures our vision, making it difficult to see some of our very importa...
...what I'm getting at is like the distinction between tourist and a traveler. The tourist experience is superficial and glancing. The traveler develops a deeper connection with her surroundings. She is more invested in them -- the traveler stays lon...
It’s lonely at the top. Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for “realistic” goals, paradoxically making them ...
Read a lot. But read as a writer, to see how other writers are doing it. And make your knowledge of literature in English as deep and broad as you can. In workshops, writers are often told to read what is being written now, but if that is all you rea...
The typical industry approach is [retailers] to treat vendors like the enemy... If vendors can't make a profit then they don't have money to invest in research and development, which in turn means that the products they bring to the market will be le...
