In this book, much is metaphorical, not as it seems. It’s written for writing’s sake, as if I were to say, “Let me tell you I’m dying.” Well of course I am. So are you.
Being nice to everybody, saying hello to everyone in the room, signing every autograph; it was instilled in me at a very young age that this was what I was suppose to do. But I don't think it helps at all. I see more people who are rude or arrogant b...
Sometimes people ask me how difficult the astronaut program was, but being in Sierra Leone, being responsible for the health of more than 200 people, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, at age 26 - that prepared me to take on a lot of...
My mother was working on her college degree throughout my childhood, and being the youngest in the family, that meant being dragged to a lot of her classes. She majored in playwriting, so I was exposed to theatre from a very young age, and it was jus...
I mean one of the things about being alone is that you've no people to define yourself off, I mean, people are like all-round mirrors, because let's face it, we don't often see ourselves all round in a mirror anyway, do we.
I had a very happy childhood, but I wasn't that happy a child. I liked being alone and creating characters and voices. I think that's when your creativity is developed, when you're young. I liked the world of the imagination because it was an easy pl...
I think growing up on a farm in a certain amount of isolation, with not a lot of friends nearby, makes you entertain yourself and kind of grows your imagination - being alone is quite good for all that. You make up stories, talk to the animals, let t...
I have an internal protectiveness where it's like, if it comes to just me, as frightened as I am of losing someone I love or things going sour or simply being alone, there is a dark place in my brain where I'm like, It could happen and I'm okay, I'm ...
I'm throwing myself back in because I like being married. I don't want to end this whole fabulous journey alone. I want someone by my side who I love and who loves me. I've finally found somebody who's up to the task of being my wife, because I'm ver...
The most terrifying thing I can think of is being alone - and I mean utterly alone, like no one else in the world alone - at night. That's the nucleus of the first story in my collection and it's also where the title came from for the book.
Trying to put a baby back in the womb is like trying to convert a butterfly into a caterpillar, but still I’ve got to try. That’s what being in love is all about.
…Our sunsets have been reduced to wavelengths and frequencies. The complexities of the universe have been shredded into mathematical equations. Even our self-worth as human beings has been destroyed.
The river was beautiful and wise. There were the two of them being happy in a new way. For here, there was no man, no woman, no master, no yellow, no black, no white. We, we who were, we are the same no longer.
I knew I was being an idiot. But I figured if I kept being an idiot, if I didn't actually accept the truth, then the truth would become false.
Sobs force their way out of my throat. I feel like I’m trapped in a disaster movie where everything is shriveling into darkness and ash. Sunflowers are being uprooted. Puppies are being trampled. Whole cities are crumbling to dust.
The intelligence suffers today automatically in consequence of the attack on all authority, advantage, or privilege. These things are not done away with, it is needless to say, but numerous scapegoats are made of the less politically powerful, to sat...
We will be happy if we can get around to the idea that art is not an outside and extra thing; that it is a natural outcome of a state of being; that the state of being is the important thing; that a man can be a carpenter and be a great man.
The truth, he thought, has never been of any real value to any human being- it is a symbol for mathematicians and philosophers to pursue. I human relations kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.
Lord, I believe; help my unbelief'... is the most natural and most human and most agonizing prayer in the gospels, and I think it is the foundation prayer of faith.
Ha! Good luck, lady!" Gustav laughed and tapped his thick index finger against his temple. "No one knows what goes on inside this head. Not even me.
The world of the future will be an even more demanding struggle against the limitations of our intelligence, not a comfortable hammock in which we can lie down to be waited upon by our robot slaves.
