The enormous amount of financial resources and creative energy that nations have spent on wars and weapons could have been redirected to curing deadly diseases, feeding the hungry, eliminating poverty, promoting art and culture, investing in renewabl...
I was born on the other side of the tracks, in public housing in Brooklyn, New York. My dad never made more than $20,000 a year, and I grew up in a family that lost health insurance. So I was scarred at a young age with understanding what it was like...
It's pathetic, but I don't really remember my first time reading 'The Great Gatsby.' I must have read it in high school. I'm pretty sure I remember it being assigned, and I generally did the reading. But I don't remember having a reaction to the book...
I had - after I sang the 'Star Spangled Banner' so badly, after my tragic singing accident, after that, you know, all my stuff kind of, like, really got even more full blown and, you know, I got stage fright and, you know, I couldn't do stand-up anym...
When I'm not the Tiger Mom, I'm a professor at Yale Law School, and if one thing is clear to me from years of teaching, it's that there are many ways to produce fabulous kids. I have amazing students; some of them have strict parents, others have len...
I was writing a scene where a guy was choking another guy to death. You can go online and type 'chokeholds' and watch scenes where martial artists choke each other out. You can hear what noises they make when they go unconscious, see how their bodies...
One thing that was amazing about World War II was that everybody signed up for the duration plus six months. Fliers got to leave combat after 25 missions, or 35 missions, but other than that, you were in it. You were part of the great effort, until, ...
The last thing a young artist should do in poetry or any other field is think about what's in style, what's current, what are the trends. Think instead of what you like to read, what do you admire, what you like to listen to in music. What do you lik...
The point is as long as it doesn’t affect others in a negative manner then just do what you enjoy doing as often as possible, it’s simple. That philosophy should underpin society and it’s something that nanny states just don’t get – that li...
We hear a lot about identity theft when someone takes your wallet and pretends to be you and uses your credit cards. But the more serious identity theft is to get swallowed up in other people's definition of you.
Human empathy, while not found on any chart of human anatomy, is the reason we instinctively hurt for our children… it is the reason that one human being’s intensely personal tests and triumphs can be harnessed to the good of countless others.
All people cross the line from childhood to adulthood with a secondhand opinion of who they are. Without any questioning, we take as truth whatever our parents and other influentials have said about us during our childhood, whether these messages are...
Girls, on the other hand, have always come easy. I don't know why that is, exactly. Maybe it's the outsider vibe and a well-placed brooding look. Maybe it's something I think I see sometimes in the mirror, something that reminds me of my father. Or m...
In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others.
The quality of health care continues to improve, and people are living longer, but these developments mean that we’re likely to eventually find ourselves in a situation in which we’re forced to make difficult choices about our parents, other love...
Ransom really looked at the other man for the first time, shook his head, stared again.“Holy hell, your eyes are like a fucking viper’s.” Venom raised an eyebrow.“You have hair prettier than one of Astaad’s concubines.” Ransom gave the va...
How many others suffered in silence, too ashamed and too afraid to speak about their pain? The world wouldn't let them grieve for children they had aborted. How could they when the rhetoric said there was no child? How does one grieve what doesn't ex...
Alex: "You asked earlier why us humans fear death. I suppose it is the unknown - not knowing what awaits on the other side. But now I know, and I still fear it." The Darkness: "?" Alex: "But now I fear the living - in fact, I now fear life more than ...
Energetically speaking, antimatter is the mirror image of matter, so the two instantly cancel each other out if they come in contact. Keeping antimatter isolated from matter is a challenge, of course, because everything on earth is made of matter. Th...
To be selfless, you would give charity anonymously, walj softly on the earth, and look out for others-even total strangers-before you look out for yourself. For the Arab mind, the self is an obstacle, an impediment, in humanity's quest foe real progr...
I'm sorry, but I do hate this differentiation between the sexes. 'The modern girl has a thoroughly businesslike attitude to life' That sort of thing. It's not a bit true! Some girls are businesslike and some aren't. Some men are sentimental and muddl...
