Real novelists, those we admire, those we consider timeless in their language and character and scene, those who receive accolades for inventive language and form, have writing lives we imagine in specific ways.
We need policy change, and the most important thing people can do is to contribute and participate in the political process. We have to vote climate change deniers and people who will create subsidies for the fossil fuel industry out of office. We have to protest when bad decisions are being made about fracking or tar sands.
My firm belief is that people who aspire to public service should have the best advice up front, as they decide whether to run and the people decide whether to support them.
Teaching does allow me to keep one foot in the youthful waters I tend to occupy in my novels, so I'm thankful for that. My students also remind me on a daily basis that the stories I collected during my district attorney days are actually interesting to people who haven't had that experience.
I guess I'm not that aware of such a big fan base. I have a few core people who write me no matter what I'm doing, but I hardly have sacks of mail being dropped on my door!
It's really fun to play someone with no filter but who is also really good at what she does.
It's so inspiring to be around other people who have ideas you haven't thought of, and all of a sudden you're like, 'Wow! That's so amazing!' I definitely want everything I do to just get better and better.
There are certain people who prize celebrity over substance. That makes the media world go round. The media needs those people to exist.
I ask you, people who care about the soul of Ukraine, those who want to preserve the heart, the spirit and the faith of our country for future generations, to please defend it.
I think it's very dangerous for people who do anything that's public to venture on the Web and check out what people are saying about them. Yes, you're bound to find things that will delight you - but you also find things that will make you brood and feel bad about yourself. Why would you intentionally invite that into your life?
I had a friend who was getting married. I said, 'You're getting married - I didn't know about all this!' She said, 'I need health benefits.'
I know, if I am playing well, I can be as good as anyone, and I want to show people who write you off and forget about you.
We seek to craft characters who inspire empathy: characters our audience will care for and, as a result, will care about what happens to them and thus will share the journey we have charted. A story, after all, is the character's journey.
I'm sure that President Trump will do plenty of things that people don't like, plenty of things people do like, and the people who don't like it, at that point, certainly take advantage of your rights and protest it - and try to seek change or do whatever you want.
My parents have been very supportive, in fact, it was my mother who identified that what I was going through was actually depression. My family and friends never let me feel as if something was wrong with me. They made me feel that what I was going through was okay. They supported my decision to take medication for depression.
'The New Yorker's' drama critics have always had a comparable authority because, for the most part, the magazine made it a practice to employ critics who moonlighted in the arts. They worked both sides of the street, so to speak.
I think people are distrustful of politicians and are looking for someone who is telling the truth with no hidden agenda.
We each have a personal myth, a vision of who we really are and what we want. Health means that part of what you want is to give to others.
Great wealth could make an enormous difference over the next decade if they sensibly support the scientific elite. Just the elite. Because the elite makes most of the progress. You should worry about people who produce really novel inventions, not pedantic hacks.
Stars are rare creatures, and not everyone can be one. But there isn't anyone on earth - not you, not me, not the girl next door - who wouldn't like to be a movie star holding up that gold statuette on Academy Award night.
I've never done stand-up; I came via small-scale touring theatre, through the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, then I got employed on that as an actor who had a humorous sensibility.
On top of my to-do list in preparing for Beijing is 'On China' by Henry Kissinger, who has had firsthand experience with every top Chinese leader since Mao, so his insights are valuable and his access is perhaps unrivaled.
I'm the kind of girl who always has a boyfriend.
We talk about institutions that are too big to fail - I think the story is as much about people who think they are too big to fail.
I am not a man who wants revenge.
Let no one who loves be unhappy, even love unreturned has its rainbow.
People who wave digital cameras at shows are the same people who sit in front of you at hockey games and wear those giant foam-rubber fingers that say, We're number one!'
I'd heard of writers who say they hate to write. Not me. I love to do it.
I think my dad is the only Arabic descendent who is an unsuccessful businessman.
You know all those models who say, 'I was so tall and lanky and everyone picked on me at school' - I was not that girl. I hear that and I'm like, 'Oh, you poor thing!'
I was a lusty kid who loved Tennessee Williams.
Iran is not a make-believe country. It is a real country populated by some 75 million people - real people; including, I daresay, a majority who are philosophically and by education inclined toward the modern, secular world, and particularly American values.
I always like to remind myself that the most honorable people of all are not those who never make mistakes, but those who admit to them when they do and then move on and do their best to right the wrongs they have made.
Keeping animals, I have learned, is all about water. Who even knew chickens drank water? I didn't, but they do, and a lot.
A lot of the writers I've known for 20 years, who used to say, 'Maybe they're right - the novel is dead!' - well, now they don't feel that it's necessarily the biggest job or most sacred calling on the planet. But it's definitely a real thing - it's always been here, always will be here, and one might just as well buckle down and get to work.
You may think me crude, and probably I am crude, but I am not so crude as I was, for I am clever enough to see that the girl of nineteen who thought herself a genius was only an unusual girl writing her heart out.
