Reading changes your perspective and feeds your imagination.
It's all been satirized for your protection.
Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.
In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.
The only people who have control over their careers are the ones you see on the covers of magazines. Everyone else is just plodding along making a living. The key is not to live over your means and overdo it.
In the sense that people who produce things and work get rewarded, statistically. You don't get rewarded precisely for your effort, but in Russia you got rewarded for being alive, but not very well rewarded.
It's not how many hours you put in with a client or on a project. It's the quantity and quality of your energy - your focus and force - that determine whether that time is valuable.
An energy tax punishes senior citizens, it punishes rural Americans, if you use electricity it punishes you. This bill will increase your cost of living and may kill your job.
If I have any advantage, maybe, as a writer, it is that I don't think I'm very interesting. I mean, beginning a novel with the last sentence is a pretty plodding way to spend your life.
Politics is its own world. It is a court and if the king's eye lights on you, you are a powerful figure. If the king's eye wanders elsewhere, you are out, whatever your title.
So wearing a corset certainly changes your state of mind.
Big brother listening in on your phone calls - I got a problem with that.
Humans are the big thing that cause damage in life - in war or whatever - and if I can get away from that and into a wilderness situation, I'm OK. You can more or less live on your own merit.
I think about the game plan, and then I go through all the little things that are almost impossible to do. If you go through those things in your mind, you can do them.
There is no finer sensations in life that which comes with victory over one's self. Go forward to a goal of inward achievement, brushing aside all your old internal enemies as you advance.
Sometimes your disappointments make you a stronger person for the future.
When you see people your own age afflicted and experiencing life-threatening illnesses, I think it prompts you to apply to yourself the philosophy, 'I want to do the best I know how to do every day.'
Consultants have credibility because they are not dumb enough to work at your company.
'Star Trek' never grabbed me. Every time I hear about Klingons, I think of those little lint balls that stick to your clothes in the dryer.
It's amazing how everyone has an opinion on how you should live your life.
Someone once asked me, 'How long does it take to do your hair.' I said, 'I don't know, I'm never there.'
Is it good, bad, or neutral to recognize thematic patterns in your own work? When it comes to recurring themes, I'm of the mind that knowledge is probably not power, at least in terms of the work.
Step outside the guidelines of the official umpires and make your own rules and your own reality.
There comes a point in every story where you have got a reservoir of knowledge, and you are then really just adding the substantial new facts to your understanding of it. That is the easiest situation, because you can call on that reservoir, but when you get a sudden story out of nowhere, like ebola, you don't have a reservoir of knowledge.
You have to visualize a second or two ahead of your car what line you are taking, what you are going to do, before you get there because it comes too fast.
It's my privilege and honor to cook three meals a day for my family, and it's a luxury on a level that I didn't even realize, because it can be relentless for me on some days. You have pride in how you take care of your family.
Keep your debt low, and ask, Can your operational expertise make an impact? Then you're taking away a lot of the risk.
I think what happens when there's a scandal in your life, the things you depended on are taken away from you, and so you value what you have. I had two very nice little boys, so sweet, and a very good husband.
When you stop talking, you've lost your customer. When you turn your back, you've lost her.
You may invite the entire 35th Division to your wedding if you want to. I guess it's going to be yours as well as mine. We might as well have the church full while we are at it.
I still like the relationship part of any story. You don't want your character to figure everything out and then at the end of the day, go home and eat soup from a can by herself.
You can make a board for all the goals you want in your life with the pictures on it, and that's great, daydreaming is wonderful, but you can never plan your future.
Books aren't written - they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it.
If your advertising goes unnoticed, everything else is academic.
You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.
Taking control of your own creation, you can ultimately affect your future.
