My first novel was turned down by about twenty publishers over a period of two and a half years. Because my name is Irish and would not be familiar to English editors, one of them said: 'If she writes anything else, do let us know.' Slowly, very slowly, the books began to sell and be noticed.
We should celebrate when optimism and hard work triumph over cynicism, lethargy, and fatalism.
Ronald Reagan knew audiences. It was a key element of his political genius. One of the things at which brilliant politicians are better than mediocre ones is smelling new public concerns over the horizon before they are picked up by polls - before the public even knows to call them 'issues' at all.
French women famously take care over their appearance, but this wasn't instilled in me as I grew up. I was taught that beauty comes from different places, from the inside and from the outside.
We have control over the work of our hands, but little over the working of the soul. But yet we must yield to it, for without it we have nothing.
I'm fascinated with worlds where there's a small population left, whether it's a movie or these TV shows that fascinate me - 'Falling Skies' or 'The Walking Dead' - they are about survival and triumphing over difficult times. I just have a thing for 'em.
Jazz is known all over the world as an American musical art form and that's it. No America, no jazz. I've seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to Africa, but it doesn't have a damn thing to do with Africa.
We want to reduce the size of government in half as a percentage of GNP over the next 25 years. We want to reduce the number of people depending on government so there is more autonomy and more free citizens.
I started reading when I was about three, a little over three.
I'm a lyric soprano. I can try to step outside that and do different kind of singing, but it's not something I can sustain over the long haul, and what is good for your voice is good for your career.
Nature's music is never over; her silences are pauses, not conclusions.
I write as if I were drunk. It is a process of intuition rather than placing myself above my story like a puppeteer pulling strings. For me, it's a scary, chaotic process over which I have little control. Words demand other words, characters resist me.
When we talk about how movies used to be made, it was over 100 years of film, literal, physical film, with emulsion, that we would expose to light and we would get pictures.
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
The cool thing about doing a play is that the final interpretation of a piece is turned over to the actors.
I have made comments in favour of British people getting jobs over and above those from southern eastern Europe.
I'd only read a bit of the first book. And I just knew about all the media furor over it. But I'd not read books 2 or 3. I'd just read a bit of it. And I'd seen the films.
Writing, I'm convinced, should be a subversive activity - frowned on by the authorities - and not one cooed over and praised beyond common sense by some teacher.
No war is over until the enemy says it's over.
Bands that I've loved over the years are the ones that have a certain myth around them.
Without qualification, I am grateful to and have the highest regard and respect for all of the wonderful people on 'Two and Half Men' with whom I have worked and over the past ten years who have become an extension of my family.
There are times over different projects when I've asked the writers why people are swearing for no good reason. I tell them that it would be funnier if there weren't these swear words.
I have had many opportunities to visit universities all over the world in the past 50 years.
I used to hate my butt - like, hate it. In school, I used to cover it up. I felt like it was too big; like, I felt like I needed to wear a sweater over it. It was awful.
One thing I've learned over these last 30 or 40 years is that people make history. There's no fait accompli to any of this.
You have to understand that once an indictment has been signed, all countries that are signature to the U.N. charter will hand a person straight over. You don't have to go through the normal extradition process.
Pretty it's pretty good for me because I'm over here in the winters. It's really improved my golf game.
The main reason why historians have skated over the relationship of Victorian PMs with the press is that they haven't been looking for it. It takes a lecturer in media studies such as Paul Brighton to point out that media management was part of the job of a Victorian prime minister.
Movie making is such a long process, and they only use that one take, although you do it over and over about 30 times. Live theatre is that one time and one time only.
I can look back over my earlier music, and it takes me back to the place I was emotionally.
When one has been married over thirty years, of course it would be absurd not to admit there have been some difficulties, at some times. But the important thing is that we have weathered them.
You have to be smart to play a dumb blonde over and over again and keep the audience's attention without extraordinary physical equipment.
Games have always a big part of my life. I was that kid freaking out over his new Nintendo.
Russia made a decisive contribution to the victory over Nazism. That's clear to every honest observer. So, therefore, in a certain manner, it is indeed part of the country's national psyche.
By and large, small companies don't want to settle for part-time employees over full-time positions.
He asked my girlfriend if we could come over and sing some of the songs that we had written, which we did. After he heard the songs, he said that he knew someone in the record business by the name of Bob Shad.
