My idol is Emile Zola. He was a man of the left, so people expected of him a kind of 'Les Miserables,' in which the underdogs are always noble people. But he went out, and found a lot of ambitious, drunk, slothful and mean people out there. Zola simply could not - and was not interested in - telling a lie.
I left school on a wet Thursday afternoon, found a room in a shared house in North London, and started my first job on the following Monday as a courier for an advertising agency.
When Bob Wilson left the BBC for ITV, I got the 'Football Focus' job, and it went from there. It came completely out of the blue, but the fact I had a high profile certainly helped.
The sets on 'Defiance' are incredible. I've never really seen a set like this, where the world is so built around us. There's not too much left for us to have to imagine. We do a lot of stuff on the green screen as well, but when we're outside in the streets, it's all there. It's amazing! The creators have just been incredible.
You look at how many years you have left, and you start to think: 'How many more films do I have in me?'
I used to be something of an obsessive when it came to research. When I first began writing the Thorne novels, I would drive to a set of traffic lights in the early hours of the morning to make sure you could turn left. I thought it was important to get even the most trivial details right.
There is no one on earth who knew you from the day you were born; who knew why you cried, or when you'd had enough food; who knew exactly what to say when you were hurting; and who encouraged you to grow a good heart. When that layer goes, whatever is left of your childhood goes with her.
Just as the left has to be more willing to question 'Government knows best,' the right has to rethink its laissez-faire attitude toward government.
It's the progressive left in this country that has viciously and systematically slimed female conservatives for their beliefs. We have the well-worn battle scars to prove it.
The worst thing about Halloween is, of course, candy corn. It's unbelievable to me. Candy corn is the only candy in the history of America that's never been advertised. And there's a reason. All of the candy corn that was ever made was made in 1911. And so, since nobody eats that stuff, every year there's a ton of it left over.
Although my marriage left me with three beautiful children, it also left me with a healthy dose of self-doubt, low self-esteem, and an extreme desire to be loved again. I was operating on empty, expecting to be paid in full.
Turning back the pages of my sweet shattered dream, I wonder if she'll ever do the same; And the thing that I call living is just being satisfied With knowing I've got no one left to blame.
Every time I get a lot of money, I cry, and I got a lot of tears left.
I remember going to university, and the people who'd left home for the first time looked at the food and were horrified. Whereas, my view was that if it was vaguely edible, then it's fine.
'Venus,' which is a Roger Michell film - my first scene was with Peter O'Toole, and I cried. That was basically my part. I came in, cried in a white wig, and then left.
I started studying music at the age of five and a half. My older sister was taking piano lessons. When her teacher left our apartment, I would get up on the piano bench and start picking out the notes that were part of my sister's lessons.
If I'm going to wind up playing left, I want to be the best left fielder in the game. I'll work to be that.
Oftentimes I deliberately put ambiguity into my books so that... the reader is left with an echo of: 'How much of this was from me?'
If you're a successful woman, chances are that you spend a ton of time working. You're probably on your email a lot, taking phone calls and going on regular business trips that don't involve your man. He can start to feel left out of a very important and very time-consuming part of your life.
Anyone who spends time on the road knows there's something special about being in the middle of Utah or Nebraska - you sit with it, and there's a peace about it. You can go left or right, and it opens up all kinds of doors. You take your own path.
I have been in there with all of them and there is nothing left for me to prove.
By the time I left school, I had a lot of tenacity.
When I left 'Being Human,' that was painful because the show was going on without me. But with 'Him & Her,' we finished on such a high together that if it is the end, it couldn't have stopped at a better time. But I hope with 'Him & Her' that we'll get another crack of the whip: that the writer might change his mind and write some more.
In the 1990s, I was among those Indonesians who demanded and celebrated the departure of our own autocrat, Suharto, and I joined the new government when he left.
There was a glamorous Nick-and-Nora element to my parents. If you remove one from the other, you're left with neither. But parents are parents.
Our society is divided by the culture wars into the Left and Right, and the United Methodist Church has always stood historically in the center and has been willing to listen to and to bring together those things that often are found in opposite camps.
There are not many intellectuals left of Harold Pinter's stature who dare raise their voices - and with such force - against the menace of U.S. and the unrestricted use of its power. Pinter's voice is an unceasing thunder.
Rather than dividing the world between good and evil, the Left divided the world in terms of economics. Economic classes, not moral values, explained human behavior. Therefore, to cite a common example, poverty, not one's moral value system, or lack of it, caused crime.
I wasn't interested in having children of my own. I know what would have happened - I'd have been left at home to look after the kids, and my career would have been over while my husband travelled the world.
I still remember March 31, 1981, when a deeply disturbed John Hinckley Jr. took aim at President Ronald Reagan and fired shots that hospitalized the Commander-in-Chief and two others, and left his Press Secretary James Brady paralyzed for life.
My dad was Chinese-American and very conservative when it came to his family's futures. He said if I wanted to have a secure job, I should go into science. So I did what Dad said and went to medical school, but the writing bug never left me.
I dig in the sand, and I play with pretty pictures, so I never really left kindergarten.
I went to Coachella once, and it was only to go see Leonard Cohen. I got in the car and sat through all the crazy traffic in L.A. to get there - instead of a two hour drive, it takes, like, six hours. Then I watched his set and turned around and left. I just so wanted to see him perform in the desert.
What most men call their conscience is imaginary virtue switching left or right according to self-interest.
The way they taught history in schools was not appealing. They stressed wars and dates. They left the people out. I was attracted to history by the need to know about the people. In China, I went to a British school, and we just learned about kings and queens. Back in America, I had the regular social studies curriculum.
Left to our own devices and passions, we human beings have a hard time seeing beyond what is immediately in front of us.
