But I have to grow out of it, because it's very boring, really. Even when you're telling people how crap you are, you're still banging on about yourself.
It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.
When you're rotten about yourself, you become rotten to everyone else, even those you love.
When I was 20 or 21, I didn't... I won't say care about anything, but you're like in your own world - you made something that you always wanted to do, and then you kind of think only about your family and yourself.
The advantage of writing from experience is that it often provides you with details that you would never think of yourself, no matter how rich your imagination. And specificity in description is something every writer should strive for.
I wouldn't go up on a stage now if you paid a thousand dollars for one minute of acting. It's a nasty experience. You're up there all by yourself. You're so damn exposed.
Find what's hot, find what's just opened and then look for the worst review of the week. There is so much to learn from watching a restaurant getting absolutely panned and having a bad experience. Go and see it for yourself.
You experience your soul each time you sense yourself as more than a mind and body, your life as meaningful, or you feel that you have gifts to give and you long to give them.
When I was young, I was just about hard work. But as I got older, I did experience anxiety, doubt, judgment, and it's so easy to lose yourself for a second.
You just try and do as much variation and as much difference and as much as possible, so you put yourself out there to try anything, really. As long as you feel you're going to get something out of the experience, it's all worth it.
These days, my subjects are murder and mayhem and other terrible things that happen to people - things that are even worse than cutting yourself shaving. And these are not the sorts of things you feel the need to experience before you write about the...
I don't like auditions. I feel like they're a very unnatural setting and it's a very unsettling experience. Because you can't help but walk in and feel like you're trying to prove yourself to people. And you should just walk in and be.
As a novelist, where do you go to tap into memories, and impressions, and sensations? It's usually, in my experience, your early life, before you started thinking of yourself as a writer, because somehow those experiences are unadulterated.
One of the things is challenging yourself to do a Rome show when everybody's done a Rome show. To find some aspect of food culture or chef culture that people can look at in a new way.
When I want comfort food, I buy Maltesers. I like all chocolates, but especially those. You can eat them, and because they're so light, you can convince yourself that they are not actually that fattening.
Instead of going out to dinner, buy good food. Cooking at home shows such affection. In a bad economy, it's more important to make yourself feel good.
You have a new role: family caregiver. It's a role nobody applies for. You don't expect it. You won't be prepared. You probably won't even identify yourself as a caregiver.
It is time to return to core values, time to get back to basics , to self-discipline and respect for the law, to consideration for the others, to accepting responsibility for yourself and your family - and not shuffling it off on other people and the...
Don't forget I'm from a military family. I was in special training in the army. I am tall, sporty and - how do you say - you can always protect yourself... I have very strong security.
You walk into someone's house and they're dying, or they've got a family member who is dying. Your needs are minor; you're there to serve and to advise and to educate. You're not there to provide yourself.
I took some me time. I think that's a really important thing to do for yourself, especially in this business. And now I feel like I'm in a really good, positive place in my life.
