Mothering has been the richest experience of my life, but I am still opposed to Mother's Day. It perpetuates the dangerous idea that all parents are somehow superior to non-parents.
I write because I know that one day I will die, and thus I should experience as many deliberate observations, careful thoughts, wild ideas, and deep emotions as I can before that day occurs.
It was an idea we had when Al was in the Senate - to organize and moderate an annual conference that would look at government policy through the lens of the family to help identify ways that the family can be supported and strengthened.
'Brisco' was the first show I created, and of course, at the time I had no idea what a special experience it was because I didn't have a frame of reference. After it was over I was like, 'Damn. Shoot. That was something special.' I'm still upset that...
I enjoy it too much - even if I knew I'd never get a book published, I would still write. I enjoy the experience of getting thoughts and ideas and plots and characters organised into this narrative framework.
I was a semiotics major at Brown, and there's this idea that stories are better, books are better, and movies are better if they cocked you off your axis and you were completely disoriented and you'd really have to rethink everything. Nobody has that...
We're still growing into that place of higher consciousness; we are becoming a global conscience. The idea is to unravel the onion and let go of the ego and evolve to that place where you perceive everything to be a beautiful experience rather than a...
The role we can play every day, if we try, is to take the whole experience of every day and shape it to involve American man. It is our job to interest him in his community and to give his ideas the excitement they should have.
As much as I love to dive into the action early, I think the hero's journey is important - the idea that the reader needs to experience the protagonist's everyday life before you turn that world upside down.
In fiction, you have a rough idea what's coming up next - sometimes you even make a little outline - but in fact you don't know. Each day is a whole new - and for me, a very invigorating - experience.
There should be a sympathy with freedom, a desire to give it scope, founded not upon visionary ideas, but upon the long experience of many generations within the shores of this happy isle, that in freedom you lay the firmest foundations both of loyal...
The idea that men are created free and equal is both true and misleading: men are created different; they lose their social freedom and their individual autonomy in seeking to become like each other.
None of us had any idea of how successful Downton was going to be. I thought I was signing up for another period drama that had a slightly modern feel. It had a freedom about it because it was coming out of the head of Julian Fellowes. Anything could...
It would be too frightening for me to consider myself a role model. But I like the idea of not being afraid of letting your imagination rule you, to feel the freedom of expression, to let creativity be your overwhelming drive rather than other things...
I love the pigeons. I just raise them, period, and feed them. Pigeons go away, and they always come back. You get a touch of freedom, and then they are free to come back to you. I love the idea of pigeons.
Obsession with conventional ideas of 'success' can be harmful enough, but compound that stress with relationships, family, financial woes and health concerns, and you find yourself in a constant state of fight or flight. This causes people to be more...
We grow up with this idea that we're all individual agents. We work, make our money, have our place to live and our satellite TV. But whether you like it or not, you need family or community.
My parents wanted me to be a doctor, and they weren't very happy at the idea of me choosing acting as a career. Everyone in my family went to university - my older brother is a lawyer - but when they saw me for the first time at the theatre, they tho...
I will commit myself to making this state an even greater place to live, work and raise a family. I intend to reach out from border to border to hear first-hand from our citizens about their thoughts, concerns and ideas for our state.
I've never been comfortable with the idea of using family and friends in stories. Which is why it takes me longer than something else. Because you make them up out of nothing. Doing that is harder.
The romantic idea is that everybody around a writer must suffer for his talent. I think a writer is a citizen of humanity, part of his nation, part of his family. He may have to make some compromises.
