Reading 'Youth in Revolt' might have ruined my career because suddenly I wanted to abandon all the emotional truth of something and just go out far on a literary limb with completely implausible things that relied completely on voice and humor. And w...
Well, I'm not sure, but of one thing I am certain: History judges one differently than contemporary observers, and so I think that as time passes, I hope that not me personally so much, but our administration will be seen for some of the things that ...
As we have sought through the centuries to define ourselves as human beings and as nations through the prisms of history and literature, no small part of that effort has drawn us to the subject of war. We might even say that the humanities began with...
I want to make it clear that the black race did not come to the United States culturally empty-handed. The role and importance of ethnic history is in how well it teaches a people to use their own talents, take pride in their own history and love the...
When you are 'world building,' people will oftentimes judge how well you built your world. They want to know: Is the culture believable? Does it feel like it has a history? I try very hard to pay attention to details.
The CIA's official history of the Bay of Pigs operation is filled with dramatic and harrowing details that not only lay bare the strategic, logistical, and political problems that doomed the invasion, but also how the still-green President John F. Ke...
The rise of the Tea Party, along with the emergence of Christine O'Donnell in Delaware, Sharron Angle in Nevada, Carl Paladino in New York and Ron Paul in Kentucky, is not the first time in American history that voters have responded to hard economic...
We want to assist China's soft power; we want to develop a vibrant young cinema in China. The average American has no understanding whatsoever of China. We'd like to create a young generation to tell their stories on a world stage. We can make histor...
Jewish history has been in my cultural DNA since I was a child growing up in post-war London. In the midst of that dark, gray, lamenting monochromatic world of the '50s, I had a sense that both Jewish and English history were full of color and light ...
I see myself as, first and above all, a teacher of history; next, a writer of European history; next, a commentator on European affairs; next ,a public intellectual voice within the American left; and only then an occasional, opportunistic participan...
The British have turned their sense of humour into a national virtue. It is odd, because through much of history, humour has been considered cheap, and laughter something for the lower orders. But British aristocrats didn't care a damn about what peo...
I don't believe - till something radical changes that we are not on track to do - that hybrids are material to climate change. They're fashionable, everybody loves them, the Prius is selling well, but so are Gucci bags. But they don't impact the way ...
I talk to fashion designers and say I want some money to save the rainforest, and they say, 'Oh, I agree with you completely Vivienne. Yes, climate change, it's definitely happening,' but they don't feel that they can do anything about it; they don't...
There is a difference between the stuff that people put online themselves, like pictures and their trips and flights and meals they've eaten, than the stuff that they don't realize is also going into foreign computers. Like, for example, copies of yo...
People ask how hard it can be sitting down for work during a 500-mile race? Well, without power steering or power brakes, holding onto 650 horses in a car that has nearly 3,000 pounds of downforce and can produce up to 4Gs vertically and laterally ca...
Yeah, well I think anyone who likes fast cars will love the Tesla. And it has fantastic handling by the way. I mean this car will crush a Porsche on the track, just crush it. So if you like fast cars, you'll love this car. And then oh, by the way, it...
I don't mind when people are telling me about their 1971 Firebird, but it's the same thing as people telling me about their car or something. It's fine if you have an interest. By talking with me, though, you could be interviewing a novelist about gu...
My first car was, as depicted in 'Sleepwalk with Me,' my mother's '92 Volvo station wagon that had 80,000 miles on it, and I had put 40,000 miles on it, so by the time it retired it had 120,000, and I basically killed it. It served me well, and my me...
It's quite a famous story that takes place on Christmas Eve, and the Germans, French, and Scottish are trying to make peace one night and they bury their dead and they play football. I play a German opera singer, in German, which I never have so I am...
Once I found out that I was playing 'Deathlok,' I unearthed my old comic book collection. I was going home for Christmas, and I have a collection of thousands of comics. I was surprised to see that 90% of them were Marvel. So, I wanted to go through ...
I realised that you could easily turn any room into a cinema with a projector, so I went on and on at my parents for one. They eventually got me a projector for Christmas when I was ten, and I realised I'd made a ridiculous mistake - I'd forgotten to...
