Now one day, maybe I can forgive John Andersen for what he done to these trees, but I ain't gonna forget it. I figure forgiving is not letting something nag at you—rotting you out.
It’s the bonds forged over baijiu, more than anything else, that keep me coming back for another ganbei despite the hiccups, figurative and literal. You can learn more about someone after three shots of baijiu than in years of sober tea sipping.
You read any Greek myths, puppy? The one about the gorgon Medusa, particularly? I used to wonder what could be so terrible that you couldn't survive even at it. Until I got a little older and I figured out the obvious answer. .
The power of such a mountain is so great and yet so subtle that, without compulsion, people are drawn to it from near and far, as if by the force of some invisible magnet…this worshipful or religious attitude is not impressed by scientific facts, l...
Here is what I was trying to figure out: how a miracle happens. A great work of art -- something that makes people pay attention, return to the work again and again, and reexamine their assumptions, something that infuriates, hurts, and confronts -- ...
Stories not only give us a much needed practice on figuring out what makes people tick, they give us insight into how we tick.
Have you ever noticed that all four of the greatest poets in the world are Muslim? And yet all the Muslims you meet are illiterate or covered head to toe in black burkas or looking for buildings to blow up? It’s a puzzle, isn’t it? If you ever fi...
Our goal is to desperately make the best products we can. We're not naive. We trust that if we're successful and we make good products, that people will like them. And we trust that if people like them, they'll buy them. And we figured out the operat...
If you never leave where you come from, I don't think you'll ever figure out who you are, because how much is forced on you? How much of your personality is imposed instead of created? That's why I left. I think people need to leave in order to find ...
The question is: will I get used to a menu with kilojoules instead of calories? I mean, I don’t think anyone even knows how many kilojoules are in a calorie. I had to break out a whiteboard this morning and do calculus just to figure out how many c...
In our global community, when a woman becomes an authoritative figure- it scares the world. She is no longer giving into traditional patriarchal notions of submissiveness, she does not require validation, and subsequently she becomes one of the most ...
I talk as I sketch, too, in order to keep their minds off what I'm doing so I'll get the most natural expression I can from them. Also, the talking helps to size up the subject's personality, so I can figure out better how to portray him.
When I was 26, 27 years old I was running a kitchen in New York, and I was a raving lunatic. The older you get, you figure out you don't need to do that. You realize at a certain point, there's a certain gravity to what you say and what you do. If th...
Which is the healthier kind of literary diversity: an un-gate-kept self-published book world, run substantially through Amazon? Or our current book world, which is part-gate-kept, part-not, with many different publishers and retailers and platforms? ...
I'm unique for a suspense author in that I don't have a specialty background. A lot of suspense writers used to be lawyers or crime beat reporters. I didn't even know a cop when I started out. I finally figured out that I could visit prisons - I just...
I just don't believe in wasting time. I see that all around me. People who live like they will be here forever. Using people, hating people, hating themselves, destroying the ones they love, destroying themselves. I believe in figuring out what you w...
I can’t do small talk really, and that’s fine. I've got old friends and family that love me, thank God. I’m grateful for what a city gives you access to, but I do feel that I’m only here until I figure out how to get out again.
I have certain rules that I've established for myself that took a while post-day job to figure out. Everyone says people who freelance or are writers struggle with the structure of it. I'm not allowed to check email before a certain hour. I'm not all...
When you're a 20-something-year-old athlete and you're getting a six-figure check every week, you're not thinking about next week. You're not thinking, 'I'm going to be broke,' or 'I'm going to need another job.' But I'll tell you, there are a lot of...
You break your neck, you don't know what's going to happen. I mean, it's foreign. You're in this body that you thought you were - that you were accustomed to, and now you're not. You have to figure out everything. I think the biggest thing for me was...
Even if you think you're doing well and have it all figured out, there is a voice you will always inevitably hear at some point which nags at you and says "but wait..." Don't ever dismiss it, listen to what it has to say. Life will never be close eno...
