It isn't the subjects we write about but the seriousness and subtlety of our expression that determines the worth of or effort.
The trouble of the king becomes the trouble of the subject, for how shall we live if judgement is withheld, or if faulty decisions are promulgated?
Self-awareness is value-free. It isn't scary. It doesn't imply that you will subject yourself to needless pain.
The brain process that results in a joke materializing where no joke was before remains a mystery. I'm not aware of any scholarly, scientific or neurological studies on the subject.
The past is not simply the past, but a prism through which the subject filters his own changing self-image.
In my case, self-absorption is completely justified. I have never discovered any other subject quite so worthy of my attention.
The whole essence of good drawing - and of good thinking, perhaps - is to work a subject down to the simplest form possible and still have it believable for what it is meant to be.
We live in a frightened time, and people self-censor all the time and are afraid of going into some subjects because they are worried about violent reactions.
So I try to re-invent my own eye every time I tackle a new subject. But it's hard, because everybody has style. You can't help it.
In the beginning you must subject yourself to the influence of nature. You must be able to walk firmly on the ground before you start walking on a tightrope.
Today it's almost impossible to do it unless you are an actress or writer with power... I wouldn't hesitate right this minute to hire a talented woman if the subject matter were right.
I want to prove that if you write in strict meter and rhyme about subjects people care about, they will buy poetry.
Disappointment over nationalistic authoritarian regimes may have contributed to the fact that today religion offers a new and subjectively more convincing language for old political orientations.
Writing can sometimes be exploitative. I like to take a few steps of remove in order to respect the privacy of the subject. If readers make the link, they have engaged with the poem.
Economics is a strange science. Our subject deals with some of the most important as well as mundane issues that impinge on the human condition.
When a person's religious beliefs cause him to deny the evidence of science, or for whom public policy morphs into a battle with the devil, shouldn't that be a subject for discussion and debate?
I think Bob Costas is terrific. He's so knowledgeable. He can talk about any subject, not just sports.
One needs to know what the hierarchy of values are from which one takes inspiration, and in a democratic society this is the subject of continuous democratic debate.
I always knew that I was tremendously creative. I recited love poems, I wrote stories and I got excellent grades in every subject, except for maths.
I start with the subject matter I want to write about. Then I make a musical base for that and create an atmosphere with the music. Once I've done that, the lyrics come last.
I gradually became persuaded that the subjects, without intending to, had revealed to me a basic truth about markets that was foreign to the literature of economics.
