I know a lot of funny people in a lot of funny places.
Fact-checking is so boring compared to writing fiction.
Like most-maybe all- writers, I learned to write by writing and, by example, by reading books.
All the elements of good writing depend on the writer's skill in choosing one word instead of another.
Too often students are being taught to read as if literature were some kind of ethics class or civics class—or worse, some kind of self-help manual. In fact, the important thing is the way the writer uses the language.
With this recitation of paraphernalia and detritus, O'Brien manages to encapsulate the experience of an army and of a particular war, of a mined and booby-trapped landscape, of cold nights and hot days, of soaking monsoons and rice paddies, and of the possibility of being shot, like Ted Lavender, suddenly and out of nowhere: not only in the middle of a sentence but in the midst of a subordinate clause.
When we humans speak, we are not merely communicating information but attempting to make an impression and achieve a goal.
It's a hell of a relief. Especially for a dude like me who is so hands on and I like to pretty much all the way hip-hop. So it's difficult when you're dealing with the majors.
I never know when somebody's going to knock on the door of my own unconscious in a way that I wouldn't have anticipated.
It's something I really love to do. I mean, I don't see myself without tennis.
You know, everybody makes mistakes when they are president.