Some years ago, I read Thomas Carlyle's history of the French Revolution, and I was very taken by the way he told the story, and it seemed as though I was right in the middle of things. And it took me a while to figure out how he achieved that effect, and one of the ways was to write it in the present tense.
Now that my kids are out of the house, I'm finally able to get to the classics I never read: Emily Bronte, Dylan Thomas, Joseph Heller's 'Catch-22.' It's endless. They're all in this gigantic pile next to my bed.
'Wayne of Gotham' is very much a father-and-son exploration. We've always seen Thomas Wayne through the years as this figure carved in marble; this perfect man. The only thing we really know about is that he died in that alley outside of a theater. But every son has to confront the reality of his father at some point in his life.
My late father Rev. James Thomas McGlowan was the inspiration behind 'Bamboozled.' My father admired Frederick Douglass' courage and his bravery in the face of adversity.
I studied Wilfred Owen for my English A Level, and that led me to Sassoon and Blunden, Rosenberg and Thomas.
Thomas, my 15-year-old, is effectively my editor, I've always trusted his voice, more than anybody, on the strip for years. He has one of those ears that's just tuned to the rhythm of humor, so if he says something's not funny, my stomach just hurts because I know he's right, and it's already been drawn.
Harriet Washington, in 'Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present,' documents the smallpox experiments Thomas Jefferson performed on his Monticello slaves. In fact, much of what we now think of as public health emerged from the slave system.
The dark areas, the 'mare' plains of the moon, are so incredibly smooth that the English astronomer Thomas Gold has suggested that they might really be depressions filled to the brim with dust. A rocket hit would show whether they are that or not.
We've become slaves to words like 'local,' 'fresh,' and 'seasonal.' We all want to be Thomas Jefferson's agrarian hero, but sustainable food is a difficult beast.
Christians - at least Christians in a liberal democracy - have accepted, after Thomas Hobbes, that they must obey the secular rule of law; that there must be a separation of church and state.
If you're going to call a book 'The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History,' readers will expect some serious carrying on about race, and Thomas Woods Jr. does not disappoint.
My grandparents and my mom prayed the rosary a lot, and later in life, I had a priest friend of mine teach me centering prayer, based on Father Thomas Keating's work. That led to practicing different kinds of meditation off and on as I got older.
Hating Wall Street is an American tradition that dates back even to the days when Thomas Jefferson cursed that money lover Alexander Hamilton. And for centuries, the complaints about it have largely stayed the same: 'It does nothing! It creates chaos! It's a parasite that sucks hardworking Americans dry!'
I was really proud that I was named after Thomas Edison and wanted to be called Edson. I thought Pele sounded horrible. It was a rubbish name. Edson sounded so much more serious and important.
One of the earliest resurrection scenes in the Bible is that of Thomas demanding evidence - he wanted to see, to touch, to prove. Those who question and probe and debate are heirs of the apostles just as much as the most fervent of believers.
Every White House has had its intellectuals, but very few presidents have been intellectuals themselves - Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Woodrow Wilson, the list more or less stops there.
Don't use your advance to buy an antique sports car, diamonds by the yard, or a bottle of wine from Thomas Jefferson's cellar instead of investing in your book.
I don't think Paul Thomas Anderson has a standard approach to anything.
I've been interested in writing and storytelling since I learned to read, but it wasn't until I read Dylan Thomas, when I was 14, that I became interested in language itself, and saw it as more than a transparent medium for a story.
I was raised in the Washington household of my grandfather Senator Thomas P. Gore of Oklahoma, and have known politicians intimately all my life.
English country life is more like Chekhov than 'The Archers' or Thomas Hardy or even the Updike ethic with which it is sometimes compared.
I devour history books. I love anything by Thomas B. Costain or George MacDonald Fraser. He writes magnificent history, and he also wrote the Flashman stories, which are irresistible.
Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson hated each other so much. But that hate that they had for each other did not come before the love of their country.
Innovation really is the life blood of our American economy... looking back at the stories of Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and the Wright Brothers, you look at emergence to technology innovation and what it has done for our economy. We need to continue that.
That was really cool. I got to kiss a little boy. I was 7 and he was 10, and his name is Thomas Curtis. He was the first boy I've ever kissed in my entire life and he was three years older than me.
We are not living up to Thomas Jefferson's idea of what a trial by jury means.
Look, in 1800 the sainted Thomas Jefferson arranged to hire a notorious slanderer named James Callender, who worked as a writer at a Republican newspaper in Richmond, Va. Read some of what he wrote about John Adams. This was a personal slander.
Robert de Niro has always been fascinating to me. And if John Cazale were still alive, that would be a man I'd love to work with. I'm a big fan of Paul Thomas Anderson's films - I would be honored to work with him. I think he's a brilliant director, and he gets such compelling stories out of his actors and out of his crew.
I am Thomas Cromwell in the court of the Tudors.
The heroes of our youth grow old - 'the boys of summer in their ruin', in Dylan Thomas's verse - yet we seem the same.