In France, I learned about wine and cheese.
One of underestimated tasks in nonfiction writing is to impose narrative shape on an unwieldy mass of material.
If someone knows me and likes me or my work, they're more likely to allow me to tell their story. But it also cuts the other way.
I am a gym rat who loves to work out, particularly running, Zumba, yoga, cycling, and kickboxing.
On a regular basis if you're trying to produce something, I think you should work every day and set achievable goals.
I began my journalistic career on the day Ronald Reagan was sworn in. That's the day I showed up for work at 'The New Republic' magazine.
We are very lucky to work in fashion and not work in a hospital or something where the biggest deal we come across is perhaps the length of a skirt.
I knew that everybody could be replaced. Nobody lasts forever. And if you work for somebody, he's certainly got the privilege and the right to fire you.
More than working toward the book's climax, I work toward the denouement. As a reader and a writer, that's where I find the real satisfaction.
While it can be pleasurable to move speedily through a work of fiction, there's a different sort of pleasure to be had in lingering, backtracking, rereading the same page.
I think I'm more sympathetic to writers, to the work and the struggle and the craft of it, than when I was in graduate school at NYU and was very judgmental.
Strict shopping laws mean that most German shops close on Saturday afternoons, reopening only on Monday when everybody is back at work.
Seafaring can be lucrative - the elite, such as gas-tanker captains, can earn $100,000 for six months' work - but the isolation is a heavy price to pay.
My husband and I own half a dozen iPods, a Mac desktop, and four Mac laptops. We're clearly fans of Mr. Jobs' work.
The problem for many people with disabilities is not that we are not able to work a certain number of hours a week. It's that no-one will let us.
For centuries the leaders of Christian thought spoke of women as a necessary evil, and the greatest saints of the Church are those who despise women the most.
Governing means governing all of the people, no matter what demographic it is, whether it'd be black, white, women, straight, gay, Republican.
My first job was when I was about 12, cleaning houses in the afternoons for different elderly women in town. I hated it.
I find women as writers and as characters are operating within narrow confines. They inherit a kind of ghetto of the soul. I'm trying to enlarge the spectrum.
They didn't even like Margaret Thatcher but at least there was Margaret Thatcher. There have been women, you know, Sonia Gandhi for heaven's sakes in India.
Everyday I find myself reminding women around me to know their value. I also have to remind myself.
