I think the church has done a pretty good job at reaching the "down and outers" but not a good job at reaching the "up and outers." I feel like one of my mandates is to reach corporate America with a message that relates to them. As an avid reader, I...
Story Content Warning: There will be angst, sex, a little rough language and rampant lesbianism. If this is not your cup of tea, don't drink it. If you are not old enough to read this, you will be soon. It might be in your best interest to wait until...
I have to expend an awful lot of energy actively undoing the impact of my name. Understandably, people assume that I have at least some connection to Iran. The truth is that I don't. I have very little knowledge about the culture, the language, the h...
I love watching old movies, and some of the holiday-themed ones are really great. I also have a bizarre thing that I'll do: I'll turn on a foreign-language TV station, usually Spanish, and watch a whole show, riveted, even though I have no idea what ...
When you are a sentence-based writer, they have to be good. They have to be really on the spot. Because when you don't have a plot, really, what shall you rely on? Just language. And sometimes I am so afraid of writing the wrong thing, I just sit and...
There were times, especially when I was traveling for 'Eat, Pray, Love,' when, I swear to God, I would feel this weight of my female ancestors, all those Swedish farmwives from beyond the grave who were like, 'Go! Go to Naples! Eat more pizza! Go to ...
I love players like Thurston Moore. I mean, you can put notes down on a sheet of paper, and if you practice and get your chops up, you can play like an Eddie Van Halen or a Steve Vai. But nobody can do what Thurston Moore does; he's his own guy. He t...
Transcendental artists are messengers. Their symbolic vocabulary originates from the infinite wisdom of higher spheres, in a non-referential time/space continuum... the way of the shaman. The presence of glyphs speaks a universal language of the soul...
-“Educating hearts precedes educating minds.Investment in children precedes investment in the future.” – Fida Qutob -This is a children’s book debating humanity, tackling questions such as: are conflicts taught or are they innate?” – Dali...
Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one of my all-time favorite writers. I feel spiritual when reading his words, even though they're translated. I wish desperately that I could read it in its original language. I already feel like I'm going to church when I r...
There was something ghost-like and insubstantial about gases to these early chemists. They called liquids that turned into gases easily, "spirits." Methyl alcohol, they called "wood spirit"; ethyl alcohol, "wine spirit." Even today, alcoholic beverag...
The resulting texts always took a narrative term, enigmatic at first but ultimately explicit and often premonitory. The semantic distribution of these basic elements diverted them from their original meaning, thus revealing their real significance. H...
Certainly working with teens keeps me up to date with language and with certain kinds of thinking. I often feel like I have to go back to that 17-year-old Chris Crutcher, and that forms the core voice. I can draw on teens from 1964 to 2001 to find a ...
To write or even speak English is not a science but an art. There are no reliable words. Whoever writes English is involved in a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence. He is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure ...
When you're making the film, you don't really think the audience; it's only when you start editing that you really start to became aware of your audience because you're thinking of how you communicate these ideas, and how lucid can you be, and yet st...
Wanda: Archie? Do you speak Italian? Archie: I am Italian! Sono italiano in spirito. Ma ho sposato una donna che preferisce lavorare in giardino a fare l'amore appassionato. Uno sbaglio grande! But it's such an ugly language. How about... Russian?
Big Chris: I've got some bad news for you, John. John: What the fuck? [Chris closes tanning parlor on John] Big Chris: Mind your language in front of the boy! John: Jesus Christ! [Chris does it again] Big Chris: That includes blasphemy as well!
Quinlan: I don't speak Mexican. Let's keep it in English, Vargas. Vargas: That's all right with me. I'm sure he's just as unpleasant in any language. Sanchez: Unpleasant? Strange. I've been told I have a very winning personality. The very best shoe c...
Cynthia: Refreshments! Lemonade here - I make! Bob: That's very nice, darling. Please... go back inside. Cynthia: Lemonade here - I make! Lemonade for guests. Bob: No, darling, please. Cynthia: [snarls viciously and curses in an Asian language] I mak...
The business card does not fully reflect who we are. We are being judged, we feel, in a humiliating way. We feel there is so much in us that has not got an expression in capitalism. You know, capitalism is a machine that recognizes outward financial,...
My first year in Japan was very tough, just like my first year in the minors. But at least there I had a lot of Dominican people and Latin people I can talk to. If you don't have anybody to talk to, you can get depressed. But if you find someone who ...
