Children, even when very young, have the capacity for inventive thought and decisive action. They have worthwhile ideas. They make perceptive connections. They’re individuals from the start: a unique bundle of interests, talents, and preferences. T...
I stand in the dark, start to unbutton. Then I hear something inside my body. I've broken, something has cracked, that must be it. Noise is coming up, coming out, of the broken place, in my face. Without warning: I wasn't thinking about here or there...
Many of us have spent a lifetime trying to be what we're not, feeling lousy about ourselves when we fail and sometimes even when we succeed. We hide our differences when, by accepting and celebrating them, we could collaborate to make every effort mo...
I worked on 'Blue Peter' and 'Tonight' and lots of TV plays, filmed people like Rudolf Nureyev and Ted Heath, and ended up a senior cameraman with my own crew. I'd had my first short story published in 1947, and when my writing really started to take...
I revise constantly, as I go along and then again after I've finished a first draft. Few of my novels contain a single sentence that closely resembles the sentence I first set down. I just find that I have to keep zapping and zapping the English lang...
The nose can’t help catchin’ what the ears get sick with. Yessir, rock bands just sweat evil. Evil’s been around for a long time, ever since rocks started getting real hot and making a lot of noise as they exploded out o’ the ground and evil ...
Nature is a good teacher; he who can read the nature well, he can learn sagacious things belong to life from it. Once you stepped in the nature, your philosophical education starts. A black vulture teaches you many things; a bear teaches you many thi...
Friendship is the bestiest thing that comes to life . Friends will always be there for you don't worry about the fakes worry about the people who had your back from the start and never treated you wrong always remember they are your real friends don'...
Keith was just bringing the glass to his lips when Adrian said, "Mmm. O positive, my favorite." Keith sprayed out the wine he'd just drunk and promptly started coughing. I was relieved that none got on me. jill burst into giggles, and Clarence stared...
Messy stuff irritates me. I don't like messiness. If you leave something around my house, I'll tell you to move it back, clean it up, throw it in the trash - don't matter, just get rid of it. I need stuff neat, organized. And once I start cleaning st...
When the rush of the weak sweeps over those that strive to be strong, its destruction. The commonplaces of moral judgment become fogged with the lack of perception stained with the sting of longing. The voice of reason is lost in the envious echoes o...
My father never wanted me to be a writer. He didn't - he came to terms with it maybe two years before he died. He wanted me to be a weather girl because when I was growing up, there were very few Latinas on television, and in the early '70s when you ...
Bullying Hurts The place where it began is told to be the school. The reason it started, was to try to be cool. There’s children staying home, in fear of the pain The possibility of loss is greater than gain. They deal with the words, reactions and...
Evolution is a blind giant who rolls a snowball down a hill. The ball is made of flakes—circumstances. They contribute to the mass without knowing it. They adhere without intention, and without foreseeing what is to result. When they see the result...
I was about 12 years old and I was sitting watching the television and it was some kind of talent show, you know, and on marches this monkey, this ape, in a pair of red-checked trousers with a little matching jacket holding a ukelele and it started j...
When my pals in high school were starting to drink, it always looked unappealing to me. I would be at a big party and see one of the popular girls or football players completely wasted and puking and acting a fool, and think to myself, There’s noth...
We believe that today's younger generation, who started a global movement by camping out on Wall Street and its equivalents around the world and who are often choosing a road less traveled rather than joining the military-industrial-academic-prision ...
Sometimes when you get older—and I'm not talking about you, I'm talking generally, because everyone ages differently—things you think on and wish on start to seem real. And then you believe them, and before you know it they're a part of your hist...
*You are not yet in the Emerald Dream. First, you must remove your earthly shell...* the voice in his head instructed. *As you reach the state of sleep, you will slip your body off as you would a coat. Start from your heart and mind, for they are the...
You get those hunger pains. 'I am so hungry. We don't have any food. What are we going to eat?' Your stomach hurts. Then you get so upset and mad, like, no food. You start having tantrums and don't want to do anything. You get mad at everybody becaus...
My father wasn't perfect. He had a temper. I took some of that. He would snap, but the older he got, he started calming down. He learned about life, but the thing that he taught my whole family was that family was the most important thing and, no mat...
