If you were a medieval scholar reading a book, you knew that there was a reasonable likelihood you'd never see that particular text again, and so a high premium was placed on remembering what you read. You couldn't just pull a book off the shelf to c...
Comics have a problem, and that is continuity - the obsession with placing the characters in an existing world, where every event is marked in canon. You're supposed to believe that these weepy star boys of now are the same gung-ho super teens fighti...
Every song brings back memories, like I remember where I wrote all these songs. 'Universal Heartbeat' was my apartment in New York City. 'My Sister' was at my apartment in Boston. I remember places and I remember what I was thinking when I wrote it.
The imagination is our final advantage as a species, a place to safely (and happily) explore experiences that are far from safe and far from happy. “Dracula” and “The Fly” may delight and appall in equal measure, but they also gently prepare ...
It is so gratifying to hear from people who look up to you and see you in these places that they never thought they could ever dream to be. It's emotional. You really feel like you're opening up people's minds, who otherwise thought that they couldn'...
I grew up in a place where books were very, very scarce, and I loved to read. I used to read the writing on my breakfast Ovaltine over and over again because it was in front of me, and I couldn't help but read anything that was in front of me.
The three of us ate a fine supper of grilled trout with sorrel cream sauce, and red potatoes out of Britney's old garden behind the ruins of the Watling place, and watercress sautéed in butter for hardly a moment with a dash of vinegar, and cream cu...
When I'm drawing, I'm drawing with the light, being completely open and creative. I can't draw in the evening. I need light and I need warmth if it is a summer thing, and I need cold if it is a winter collection. The good thing is that I have houses ...
I wasn't predicted to be anything. I just followed an inner spirit, and it put me in the right place and the right time. I didn't want to be the mayor of Atlanta. I didn't want to run for Congress. I didn't want to work for Martin Luther King Jr. I w...
In general, the main themes emerge early for each book, even before the storyline and characters, as I research the time and place I want to draw upon. Having said that, every single book so far has offered me surprises en route, and these include mo...
Typically, highway bridges have about 50 years. But over in England, they have iron bridges approaching 250 years. In France, there are Roman aqueducts that are approaching 2,000 years old. So a bridge can last a very long time if it's built properly...
My game is really played above time. I don't say that like I'm saying I'm ahead of my time. I'm saying, like, if I'm on the court and I throw a pass, the ball that I've thrown will lead my teammate right where he needs to go, before he even knows tha...
The thing about New York is, more than any other place I've ever been, you run into people on the street that you would never imagine you'd see, old friends, people just like there for a day or two. I find that all the time when I'm walking around Ma...
I think I've grown up in a mixed environment, and maybe a lot of the time I haven't really belonged anywhere in the way I've dreamt of belonging to, you know, living on the street and playing to all the kids on the street, growing up together. I supp...
For a long time, sure, I was letting the pressure of being Rodney King get to me. It ain't easy. Even now, I walk into a place wondering, 'What people are thinking? Do they know who I am? What do they think about what happened? Do they blame me for t...
The baseball fights, you don't ever see the squaring off like you do in hockey, and in some instances, that's where baseball fights can be potentially more dangerous because you've got guys running all over the place and people throwing punches at yo...
I've said before, the number one thing that we have to work on is protecting the gay community from sharia law. Now, in the United States, it's probably not a big issue right now, but my brother-in-law is gay, and his partner and I would like them to...
Ever since I came to Congress in 1992, there are those who have been trying to silence my voice. I've been told to 'sit down and shut up' over and over again. Well, I won't sit down and I won't shut up until the full and unvarnished truth is placed b...
In a community center in India once, somebody said, 'Aren't you sorry you don't have children?' And I thought, 'If I answer truthfully, I will lose them,' because it was a very different culture and a different place. And then I thought, 'What's the ...
Gooper Pollitt: The point is I won't see this place run into the ground by a drunken ex-football hero. Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt: You shut up about my husband! Mae Pollitt: You shut up!
Captain Renault: Is everything ready? Rick: [points to his jacket pocket] I have the letters right here. Captain Renault: Tell me, when we searched the place, where were they? Rick: Sam's piano. Captain Renault: [looks at the piano] Serves me right f...
