I was 22 and had worked on Wall Street for a year, and quit my job. I bought a motorcycle and sort of had this fantasy that I'd go cross-country like 'Easy Rider.' I went from New York to L.A., and on the way back, I stopped in Chicago and saw a friend of mine who was into improv. And I figured it might be fun to give it a shot.
I remember when the Berlin Wall fell and suddenly intractable problems get solved.
To be clear, I abhor the separation wall. It is an eyesore in itself and makes tangible the failed diplomacy and cruel short-sightedness that causes such misery in the region. No Palestinian can see that wall and not wonder if the Israelis mean it to stay there forever, a constant reminder of what they never intend to change.
I began as a fiction writer - I had written three novels in my 20s and 30s. But as my work has gravitated towards literary nonfiction, or lyric essay or poetic essay, whatever you want to call it, I'm constantly beating my head against the wall 'cause I'm teaching a genre that's no longer that exciting to me and that I'm no longer practicing.
One of the outstanding achievements of the new constructional technique has been the abolition of the separating function of the wall.
In the most important areas, as individuals and countries, we don't change our behavior until we have our backs to the wall.
You have to be young to be able to do things like that. Now I'm more cautious. I'm proud that I was able to do what I did - psychologically it was a great wall to climb - but sometimes I regret it.
Every Westerner is jubilating that the Berlin Wall has fallen. Something worst than the Berlin Wall is in Palestine; and nobody is talking about it.
Panama is a country that's been dealing with issues of identity since its very birth. It was born on Wall Street. It was born out of engineering construction. It was the canal. Because of the canal, the country was born, so the country has been divided into pro-canal and against-canal people for so long.
We were talking about the space between us all and the people who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion. Never glimpse the truth - then it's far too late when they pass away.
There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you.
You can't manage Wall Street. Wall Street has its own viewpoints on everything. I have always believed, if you manage your business correctly, Wall Street will take care of itself.
For 'Never Knowing,' I outlined it and then blocked it out on my office wall with index cards, but things still happened organically.
Everywhere you look, there's a hunger to put the ethos by which Wall Street thrives on trial.
For me, feminism is about equality. So, when someone works for a Wall Street firm and says they're a feminist, my eyes are going to roll.
If you really think that ambition, power, lust, desire are not as applicable in the media as in politics or on Wall Street or anywhere else, you're deluding yourself.
Experience, already reduced to a group of impressions, is ringed round for each one of us by that thick wall of personality through which no real voice has ever pierced on its way to us, or from us to that which we can only conjecture to be without.
Gory stuff can be shocking but it doesn't really scare me. I'd say the kind of stuff that gets under my skin is the unknown. You hear a knock behind a wall and you don't know what it is. Is there something there or not?
I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.
While all the other kids were out playing ball and stuff, I used to stay in my room and imagine that there was a camera in the wall. And I used to really believe that I was putting on a television show and that it was going out to somewhere in the world.
There is a great deal of sympathy amongst workers for the Occupy Wall Street movement. We understand their frustration.
My advisers built a wall between myself and my people. I didn't realize what was happening. When I woke up, I had lost my people.
The author O. Henry taught me about the value of the unexpected. He once wrote about the noise of flowers and the smell of birds - the birds were chickens and the flowers dried sunflowers rattling against a wall.
If you ask me what is the best good fortune in my life, of course I say that I have seen in my lifespan the Wall coming down, the reunification.
I've come around to thinking that having Donald Trump in the White House would be wonderful. Even if he isn't able to achieve very much. Now, daddy's gonna build the wall, daddy's gonna fix trade. That's going to happen.
With 'Running Scared,' I originally wanted to do a piece that was going to be about a couple, and the whole thing would be based on wall posts on Facebook. So the idea started there.
Possibly I am difficult to live with, but I don't bring my work home much. I'm either busy or not busy. And I don't work from home. I have an office here which has a white wall. No view. I did try working in a room with a view but it was too interesting. Too distracting.
Appeasing Wall Street is to be expected from the GOP who do little to hide their true intentions and their defense of the wealthiest financial institutions and interests.
Most regular superhero books are designed to go on forever; of course, very few of them do, but the point is they are trying to throw mud against the wall and hope it will stick, and most of it slides off.
History has long had a wall up between the kitchen and the dining room. Front of house, back of house - one group always wielded more power and influence.
When the ivy has found its tower, when the delicate creeper has found its strong wall, we know how the parasite plants grow and prosper.
I'm very lucky because people send me a lot of stuff and post cool articles and pictures on my wall, which does make life a lot easier for me. When we were at 60,000 or 100,000 'likes,' I was still having to source the content myself, and I was constantly trolling the Internet, whereas now things are sent to me, which does make it a lot easier.
What's happened to the music industry, from my perspective, is a lot of great music is behind the wall that can't get through, and therefore, a lot of artists are getting discouraged.
The reason we have not gone to newspapers is because its a slow growth industry and I think they are dying. I'm not sure there will be newspapers in 10 years. I read newspapers every day. I even read Murdoch's Wall Street Journal.
I opposed the Medicare prescription drug entitlement. I opposed the Wall Street bailout. I opposed the stimulus bill.
No no there wasn't any planned 14th season, we all saw the writing on the wall. The ratings had been going down and so fourth, that curve goes on every show and in everybody's life.
