Going on unemployment was a total low point for me, but it was also the point when I promised myself I'd write every day from 9 to 5.
June 10, 2002, the day John Ashcroft announced the arrest of Jose Padilla, marked a low point in Ashcroft's career as Attorney General.
Sometimes Christians live in a terror of universal obligation: AIDS over here, people to be saved over here, a crushing sense of low-level guilt every day of our lives. Question to ask: Where has God put me right now? I need to say no to a whole bunch of other things because if I don't say no I can't say yes to others.
When I came to Mumbai, I didn't know a soul. The only person I knew was an assistant director, which, everyone agrees, is the lowest form of life on the set. So, it was not a great contact to have. So, I knew from day one that I wasn't going to be launched opposite a superstar.
Back in the 1980s, when I was a lowly editorial assistant by day and trying to be a novelist by night, no god reigned so supreme as the god of literary prose.
The 'I Wanna Dance' hook actually came to me when I was in bed and just in that lucid moment between consciousness and sleep... I jumped out of bed and recorded a voice note of the vocal hook and I went into the studio the next day fully inspired.
I say it every day - I'm the luckiest man on earth.
Writing and playing songs is something that I've loved doing since the day I started. It's never been a chore; it's always a hobby. To be able to do that from day to day makes me believe I'm a very lucky person.
We had an argument, and he told me to be home at midnight, and I said no. And so when I did come home, the door was locked. And I had gotten a set of luggage for graduation that day, and it was on the front porch, packed. He thought that he was going to prove a point and I was going to say, 'Oh, I'm sorry, Daddy, I'm sorry'.
There was a verse that said if you are lukewarm rather than hot or cold, God will spit you out of his mouth on Judgment Day. And I felt like, I mean, I don't know. I'm lukewarm.
I love it when you have a lull in the day and you turn on the TV and a random movie is on that you either have never seen or haven't seen in years. Like 'Coming to America' or 'Misery' or 'Moonstruck.'
A newspaper is lumber made malleable. It is ink made into words and pictures. It is conceived, born, grows up and dies of old age in a day.
Our ties are deep and long-standing. We are dependent on each other. And no matter what the issue of the day, whether it be softwood lumber, whether it be a war in Iraq, we need to continue to work together.
Why does the past seem so magical, so fraught, so luminous? At the time it was just, ugh, another boring bloody day. But, to look back on, it's a day full of miracles and light and extraordinary events. Why is this? What process do we apply to the past, to give it this vividness? I don't know.
I can't believe there is a poet who hasn't eagerly put down a word one day, only to erase it the next day deciding it was sheer lunacy. It's part of the process of selection.
If you want to find the source of much of the music of modern day Russia, you will find it in the incredible compositions of that crazed lunatic Berlioz.
When I say they're lunatics, that's what I'm talking about. People that think you should allow guns in day care centers, but they're protecting themselves by not allowing guns in their workplace, that would be in that category of lunatics.
I used to have the same lunch every day, for 20 years, I guess, the same thing over and over again.
I wake up at 5am, by 6am I’m on the way to training. I come back and relax, have lunch, take a little nap, then train again at 4pm for an evening run. Then relax, dinner and bed at 9pm until the next day.
I took a job at the pool in order to earn the five cents a day it cost to swim. I counted wet towels. As a bonus, I was allowed to swim during lunchtime.
