I hadn't played any music since freshman year of college, more than thirty years ago, so I had to relearn everything. I started writing songs. Some were dance and trance songs (I listen to them a lot while I'm writing), and some were love songs, beca...
Major Henry West: This is what I've seen in the four weeks since infection. People killing people. Which is much what I saw in the four weeks before infection, and the four weeks before that, and before that, and as far back as I care to remember. Pe...
Dilios: It's been more than thirty years since the wolf and the winter cold. And now, as then, it is not fear that grips him, only restlessness. A heightened sense of things. The seaborn breeze, coolly, kissing the sweat at his chest and neck. Gulls ...
Dilios: It's been more than thirty years since the wolf and the winter cold. And now, as then, a beast approaches; patient and confident, savoring the meal to come. This beast is made of men and horses, swords and spears. An army of slaves vast beyon...
Addison DeWitt: [voiceover] Margo Channing is a star of the theater. She made her first stage appearance at the age of four in Midsummer Night's Dream. She played a fairy and entered, quite unexpectedly, stark naked. She has been a star ever since. M...
Lt. Frederick Manion: [Roars at "Duke" Miller, who has just given his testimony] You're a *liar!* You're a *lousy, stinking liar!* Paul Biegler: I apologize to the court for my client's outburst. But it's almost excusable, since the prosecution has s...
Col. Quaritch: So since a deal *can't* be made, I guess things get *real* simple. [Sarcastically] Col. Quaritch: Jake, thanks. I'm gettin' all emotional. Might just give you a big wet kiss! Col. Quaritch: I'll do it with minimal casualties to the ind...
Andrea Beaumont: Hi. Hey, what happened to you? Trip over some loose cash? It's been three days since we met and still no calls. I figured you must be dead or something. Bruce Wayne: You expect every guy you meet to call you up? Andrea Beaumont: The ...
I did point out that I have no prophetic gifts. I write books because I tried to do something more useful and failed. Since I've been trained to write, I do that as a defense against total despair. And seeing people like you, who are actively engaged...
It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won't stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact...
The mystical trend of our time, which shows itself particularly in the rampant growth of the so-called Theosophy and Spiritualism, is for me no more than a symptom of weakness and confusion. Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions, and c...
Holy shadows of the dead, I am not to blame for your cruel and bitter fate, but the accursed rivalry which brought sister nations and brother people to fight one another. I do not feel happy for this victory of mine. On the contrary, I would be glad,...
Since the beginning of my recording career in 1975, I have had a little difficulty because the pop stations think I'm a jazzer who doesn't have a feeling for pop, so it's hard to get my records played. Similarly, black urban radio doesn't understand ...
As the rain hides the stars, as the autumn mist hides the hills, as the clouds veil the blue of the sky, so the dark happenings of my lot hide the shining of Your face from me. Yet, if I may hold Your hand in the darkness, it is enough. Since I know ...
No star is ever lost we once have seen, We always may be what we might have been Since Good, though only thought, Has life and breath - God's life - can always be redeemed from death. And evil in its nature is decay, And any hour may blot it all away...
Rather to my surprise, I found myself genuinely indignant at the suggestion that murder was to be reintroduced as a means of political advancement for the first time since the Tudors, and even more indignant that the legal and political establishment...
Price controls almost invariably produce black markets, where prices are not only higher than the legally permitted prices, but also higher than they would be in a free market, since the legal risks must also be compensated. While small-scale black m...
There is only one motive for writing a novel: to be published and read. To me there is no distinction between the mystery novel and the novel, only between good books and bad books. A good book takes the reader into a new world of experience; it is a...
Five common traits of good writers: (1) They have something to say. (2) They read widely and have done so since childhood. (3) They possess what Isaac Asimov calls a "capacity for clear thought," able to go from point to point in an orderly sequence,...
...My deepest personal reason for staying in Paris is that whatever I have as a character, good or bad, is based on the fact that since the age of four I have never run away from anything however painful or dangerous when I thought it was my duty to ...
Political conflicts are merely surface manifestations. If conflicts arise you may be sure that certain powers intend to keep this conflict under operation since they hope to profit from the situation. To concern yourself with surface political confli...