On the campaign trail, I have the opportunity to meet people from all walks of life - from residents at a battered women's shelter to mentally handicap children to retirees - and learn about their lives and struggles.
Preparation for old age should begin not later than one's teens. A life which is empty of purpose until 65 will not suddenly become filled on retirement.
I've never made any statements about the abortion issue at any time in my life - never retreating one inch - from a woman's rights to legal abortion. Ever.
Between planning family vacations and running away for novel-writing retreats, I've spent much of my adult life questing for the perfect beach escape, renting cottages all along the Florida Gulf and up and down the Atlantic Coast - as far north as Nags Head, as far south as Key West.
Part of me wanted to disappear into a cave in India, and I did end up going on retreats there, but, don't ask me why, I always felt very strongly that the point for me was to find a way to live a truly spiritual life in the modern day world and be able to work with all the positive aspects of our cultural and technological advancements.
I mean, if a person acts irresponsibly in his own life, he will pay the consequences. And it's not so much divine retribution as it's built into the law of nature.
I have lived most of my life with the conviction that I don't dream, because I never could retrieve a dream.
People say I am stuck in childhood, but it's not that. I remember seeing a Matisse retrospective, and you could see he started out one way, and then he tried something different, and then he seemed to spend his whole life trying to get back to the first thing.
I don't really think about having a retrospective on my high-school years. It's not something that, from a positive or a negative standpoint, is a driving force in my life.
We must do everything we can to help our service members and veterans transition into civilian life once they return home, and that means preparing them for the tough job market.
The only thing I want to be satisfied in life is to do one reunion tour with Guns N' Roses. I would like to finish what I started with them.
I started with the Target Company in 1993 when their Christmas theme that year was 'It's A Wonderful Life,' and they reunited the actors who played the Bailey kids. So we went all over and really had a blast getting the love from all of the fans and thought, 'Whoopty-doo, there's something going on here.'
Some mystery should be left in the revelation of character in a play, just as a great deal of mystery is always left in the revelation of character in life, even in one's own character to himself.
People are motivated by the desires for privilege, for power, for profit. Those are not shocking revelations. Anyone who's had any experience in life knows these things.
When I grew up as a kid, a part of my life - I grew up in Boston near Revere Beach, at my grandma's, and she would take me to the beach.
I may be revered or defamed and decried; But I tried to live my life right.
Violence ravaged my life. I was a victim of hatred, and I have dedicated my life to reversing that hatred.
Let me give you an idea of Fifties Britain. The war had ended ten years before, and most people had returned to their gardens and allotments hoping life would revert to how it was before the hostilities.
I will say overwhelmingly what means so much more to me than the opinion of one reviewer are the letters I get from fans who tell me how a particular book has changed their life.
I have learned not to read reviews. Period. And I hate reviewers. All of them, or at least all but two or three. Life is much simpler ignoring reviews and the nasty people who write them. Critics should find meaningful work.
