My mother is probably the wisest person I've ever known. She's not schooled, she's not well read. But she has a philosophy of life that makes well-read people seem like morons.
To this day, the only argument against Obama that critics can seem to come up with involves admitting he's better than them - though they certainly season it with some racism. You know, he's that lucky black man who actually appeals to the populace. He's that elitist who got himself off food stamps and into Harvard.
Many of my fellow atheists consider all talk of 'spirituality' or 'mysticism' to be synonymous with mental illness, conscious fraud, or self-deception. I have argued elsewhere that this is a problem - because millions of people have had experiences for which 'spiritual' and 'mystical' seem the only terms available.
Look around at the countries of Europe, and you'll find that practically all of them have pasts that are just as tragic as Ireland's, yet the people seem able to find some creative way at moving into the future.
I seem to always inspire a strong reaction one way or the other.
Acting has always been something I've wanted to get into. I think the best models are actors; you're taking on a character. In that sense, I have been acting for a long time. It didn't seem like a crazy transition.
Now, I know a lot of things in the big man's world are not what they seem: a lot of people are out for themselves, and you can't always trust what someone says.
Football is made up of all kinds of conflict. In a dressing room, between players, between us and the manager, between us and loads of people who don't seem to matter. It's constant and harsh sometimes.
A lot of actors just don't seem grown up no matter how old they get... just juveniles with grey hair.
If you look at the most meaningful science fiction, it didn't come from watching other films. We seem to be in a place now where filmmakers make films based on other films because that's where the stimuli and influence comes from.
It's going to seem idiotic to say this, but I think that at a given moment we all need a place to ourselves where we can refuge ourselves and cut ourselves off from the world.
I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built up on the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think.
I do think that it's a dysfunctional relationship between columnists and commentators, because they both seem to hate each other, like a terrible marriage.
Often it does seem such a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.
I do not question the power of our weapons and the efficiency of our logistics; I cannot say these things delight me as they seem to delight some of our officials, but they are certainly impressive.
Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter.
If I were an actress today at the age of 18, I would never make it, because now our young actresses all seem to be very beautiful and very talented right away.
Satire is people as they are; romanticism, people as they would like to be; realism, people as they seem with their insides left out.
I read stories aloud at every stage. I listen to my writer friends when they kindly offer criticism. I listen to my husband when he tells me something doesn't seem right. I have my mother's boyfriend, Loring Janes, read to make sure I get everything right with the machines and guns.
I had a fairly enlightened dad, though if you looked at his resume, it might not seem that way. He was a chartered accountant for Price Waterhouse. He was strict, and we had a very ordered life. To this day, I am the least materialistic person I know, because my father didn't raise me to just go out and buy this or that car.
No matter what you're going through, there's a light at the end of the tunnel and it may seem hard to get to it but you can do it and just keep working towards it and you'll find the positive side of things.
My main interest is the problem of the singularity. If we can't understand what happened at the singularity we came out of, then we don't seem to have any understanding of the laws of particle physics. I'd be very happy just to understand the last singularity and leave the other ones to future generations.
My wife and children seem to like me quite a bit, and as long as that is true, I'm really OK.
In a sense it might even be said that our failure is to form habits: for, after all, habit is relative to a stereotyped world, and meantime it is only the roughness of the eye that makes two persons, things, situations, seem alike.
In real life, events seem much less dramatic.
I have been primarily interested in how and why ordinary people do unusual things, things that seem alien to their natures. Why do good people sometimes act evil? Why do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things?
One thing we seem to be missing is that just as we no longer search for the news, the news finds us today (e.g. this article found me) we will no longer search for products and services, rather we will look to our social graph to what products and services they like and don't like.
It is a fine thing to establish one's own religion in one's heart, not to be dependent on tradition and second-hand ideals. Life will seem to you, later, not a lesser, but a greater thing.
My poems tend to be more celebratory and lyrical, and the novels so far pretty dark. Poetry doesn't seem to me to be an appropriate tool for exploring that.
Operating-room errors hold a special terror for patients, if only because they seem like the most avoidable kind of complications. The occasional horror stories of patients who have the wrong leg removed or the wrong knee replaced generate the most headlines, as do tales of patients whose identities are mixed up entirely.
An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.
I thought my life would seem more interesting with a musical score and a laugh track.
American officials have bent over backwards to show how sensitive they are to Muslim culture. It didn't seem very effective. They seem to be worried about winning the respect of other people.
Sunsets are so beautiful that they almost seem as if we were looking through the gates of Heaven.
When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.
My favourite TV show is... 'Downton Abbey.' The characters are wonderful, and the style is created so beautifully on screen. Everything from the table settings to the linen seem perfect to me. While I'm watching it, I'm in a totally different world.
