My boarding school experience was the only thing I had strong enough feelings to write about for hundreds and hundreds of pages. I can still smell the formaldehyde of the fetal pigs in biology.
But it's the particularity of a place, the physical experience of being in a place, that makes it onto the page. That's why I don't just do library research. I very rarely write about somewhere I haven't been.
When a novel has 200,000 words, then it is possible for the reader to experience 200,000 delights, and to turn back to the first page of the book and experience them all over again, perhaps more intensely.
I have an affection for tangible objects, like books and pages, but people sure do seem to love their Kindles! We're definitely in the middle of a revolution that will determine how people find, read, and experience stories.
As for suspense, I like to write books that draw you into the hero's plight from the opening pages, where people put their lives on the line for something - a belief, a family member, the truth.
'White Collar' is really a unique family where people kind of all get each other, and they're all on the same page. I was really fortunate because when I got there, I kind of just immediately fit right in with everybody.
The beauty of the innovation that flows from the open web is that no one has to ask for permission, get a credential, or win a Disrupt or Launch award to go prove their idea is worthy. They just... put up a page on the web, iterate, iterate, iterate....
When you're doing that you lose your focus on the discipline of the business, and how you train people at Hamburger University, and everybody gets on a bigger, different vision, and they're not on the same page.
I'd really love to see a business model for higher education going forward that is actually affordable, that uses modern technology to reach scale and quality and that really reimburses the services rendered in a way that's meaningful to everybody.
'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' is just one of those movies that's like a page of history. You can't really go wrong. It's a prequel. It's not like number three. Which is really cool, to be the before as opposed to the after.
Solving climate change is a complex topic, but in a single crude brush-stroke, here is the solution: the price of carbon dioxide must be such that people stop burning coal without capture.
A well-conceived product excels at what it does. It's close to being functionally flawless - like a Ziploc bag, a radio from Tivoli Audio, a Philips Sonicare toothbrush, a Nespresso coffee maker or Google's home page.
Equipped with two cell phones - one for work and another for home - I like to think of myself as a kind of 21st-century digital pioneer, ready to network, fax, page, e-mail and - oh, yes - talk at will.
I think that different pleasures work for different readers - a friend of mine won't read anything that's not a cardiovascular sort of page-turner. I tend to care less about plot, but I'm a sucker for humor and strangeness.
You have to be there not for the fame and glory and recognition and being a page in a history book, but you have to be there because you believe your talent and ability can be applied effectively to operation of the spacecraft.
To this wonderful page in our country's history another more glorious still will be added, and the slave shall show at last to his free brothers a sharpened sword forged from the links of his fetters.
Whether you're a history buff or a fantasy fan, Druon's epic will keep you turning pages. This was the original game of thrones. If you like 'A Song of Ice and Fire', you will love 'The Accursed Kings'.
Many of the characters who appear in the pages of the Fourth Gospel are literary creations of its author and were never intended to be understood as real people, who actually lived in history.
I don't expect an overnight change of all desktops to what the US Military used to call B3 level security. And even that would not stop users from shooting themselves into the foot.
I have three brothers and they're all into computers. They're all intellects. My mother would pay me a quarter a page to read a book and I couldn't make 50 cents. I just couldn't do it.
Honestly, the average American spends about 52 minutes a day in commute traffic. And as much as I love driving my car and many people like driving their car, commuting has never been fun for me.
