In articulating all my feelings about marriage equality, I almost don't know where to begin. And perhaps that's part of the problem. Why do we have to explain ourselves when it comes to issues of fairness and equality? Why is common sense not enough?
God is not disillusioned with us. He never had any illusions to begin with.
I also believe that it is time to begin the fundamental analysis of how we got here, what led us here and what we need to do in order to ensure that we are equipped with the best possible intelligence as we face these issues in the future.
To begin with, I want to tell a good story, a story that people will listen to and that they'll think this is true, even if it is a story that might be defined as - as myth or legend or even fanciful.
I will begin my presidency with a jobs tour. President Obama began with an apology tour. America, he said, had dictated to other nations. No Mr. President, America has freed other nations from dictators.
You have started the book with this bubble over your head that contains a cathedral full of fire - that contains a novel so vast and great and penetrating and bright and dark that it will put all other novels ever written to shame. And then, as you get towards the end, you begin to realise, no, it's just this book.
Even as a kid, I never liked breakfast. I just don't like to eat then. I like to get up and work. I think sticking a whole bunch of carbohydrates in your stomach in the morning is probably the worst way to begin the day.
As for tweeting and texting: impassioned discussions, particularly when they're intimate, don't work in abbreviated script messages. No relationship should begin or end in 140 characters.
Developing Christlike attributes in our lives is not an easy task, especially when we move away from generalities and abstractions and begin to deal with real life. The test comes in practicing what we proclaim.
I slow down when hiking. The rhythm of nature is more leisurely. The sun comes up, it moves across the sky, and you begin to synchronize to that rhythm.
Why do alcoholics begin down the same hazardous road day after day? They are in search of that elusive window of well-being that opens when you drink your way out of a hangover and aren't yet drunk all over again. The alcoholic's day consists of trying to keep that window open.
My interest in photography is not to capture an image I see or even have in my mind, but to explore the potential of moments I can only begin to imagine.
You think that the heads of state only have serious conversations, but they actually often begin really with the weather or, 'I really like your tie.'
In dreams begin responsibilities.
If I am told to be at a shoot at 10 A.M., I am ready on time. By 11:30, I lose my patience. After that, I keep threatening to leave the sets if they don't begin soon. It works sometimes.
There's a film that I wrote that I want to do called 'The Grey,' which is about a group of pipeline workers in Alaska flying back into civilization after being remote for a number of months. The 737 they're on goes down, and they begin to be hunted by a pack of rogue wolves.
You don't want to be ungenerous toward people who give you prizes, but it is never the social or political message that interests me in a novel. I begin with an interest in a relationship, a situation, a character.
It's when the lawyers themselves become bad guys that you begin to have a serious problem.
No matter how many times you say Social Security is broke, the reality is that Social Security's independent revenue stream and its Trust Fund's investments maintain the program's solvency until 2037, when it may begin to fall short.
Neuroscientists talk a lot about brain circuits. In fact, the word 'circuit' is probably misleading. We do not know where most circuits begin and end. And unlike an electrical circuit, brain connections are heavily reciprocal and recursive, so that a direction of information flow can be inferred but sometimes not proven.
Begin challenging your assumptions. Your assumptions are the windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile or the light won't come in.
In August 1961, I visited President Kennedy at Hyannis Port. The Berlin Wall was going up, and he was about to begin a huge military buildup - reluctantly, or so he said, as he puffed on a cigar liberated by a friend from Castro's Cuba.
Ultimately, the issue is not whether you are pro- or anti-sports betting. You begin, from my standpoint, from the premise that it is going to continue to exist, and if it is going to continue to exist, should it be shoved underground, or should it be regulated?
We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.
I think what I like to do is to begin with the ordinary and find the extraordinary in it.
If the administration wants cooperation, it will have to begin to move in our direction.
When people do come face to face with each other as human beings, they begin to understand each other better.
When a child can be brought to tears, and not from fear of punishment, but from repentance he needs no chastisement. When the tears begin to flow from the grief of their conduct you can be sure there is an angel nestling in their heart.
When everyone is telling you, 'You're so beautiful, there's nobody like you,' you begin to think it's true. But of course there is nobody like you.
When you go along in life and develop whatever notoriety you do, people begin to relate to you differently, and I'm just always most comfortable with the people I grew up with.
Any reflection about poetry should begin, or end, with this question: who and how many read poetry books?
Giving oneself permission to write to begin with is the first enormous challenge. But you discover that this permission involves a requirement: To write about things that are difficult because they are, in fact, your subject.
I'm Irish and always will be, but America has taught me so much. Maybe it's here in the U.S. that we find a healing, for in the broader melting pot we get to look at some of these self-destructive attributes that we bring to bear upon our own quarrels and begin to solve them in ways other than just splitting apart.
Sometimes, if you begin to sing in a halfhearted mood, you can sing yourself up the ladder. Singing will often make the heart rise.
We begin to see, therefore, the importance of selecting our environment with the greatest of care, because environment is the mental feeding ground out of which the food that goes into our minds is extracted.
Growth theory did not begin with my articles of 1956 and 1957, and it certainly did not end there. Maybe it began with 'The Wealth of Nations'; and probably even Adam Smith had predecessors.
