I don't plan ahead; each book finds me. History itself, the resonance of the past

with the present, is the common denominator in all of them.
Guy Gavriel Kay

You don't need to have kids to write a good book for kids. I don't want my kids to see themselves in my books. Their lives should be their lives.
Kevin Henkes

One of the most important things you learn from the Internet is that there is no 'them' out there. It's just an awful lot of 'us.'
Douglas Adams

I ran the Iditarod twice. I finished once. I came in 42nd or 43rd place out of 70 plus teams the first time, and I scratched 80 miles from Nome the second time. You can read about my experience in the race in my books 'Woodsong' and 'Winterdance.'
Gary Paulsen

In writing my historical novels, I have to rely upon my imagination to a great extent. I think of it as 'filling in the blanks.' Medieval chroniclers could be callously indifferent to the needs of future novelists. But I think there is a great difference between filling in the blanks and distorting known facts.
Sharon Kay Penman

I could not sit down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life.
Jane Austen

I have someone that cooks for me... that's the best thing ever. I just want to show up and I want my house to be like a hotel... so I want to have a couple of options... I like to have a couple of options.
Ashton Kutcher

Wherever I go in the world, I'm treated like royalty.
Dan Shechtman

I'm resigned to the fact that the corseted history of America is not as exciting as that of Britain.
Felicia Day

I've always liked clothes, since I was a kid.
Martin Freeman

There was a point where I was making four movies a year. I was always on a set. I had no stories to tell. I was feeling empty. My life was just luggage and hotels and from set to set, from character to character. And one day, I said, 'And where is mine?' You know? And the moment I started to feel that fear, I stopped and I slowed down.
Penelope Cruz

Gemeoss

Our present nuclear fusion reactors are classified by the methods used to support the nuclear

fusion reaction, which takes place at a temperature much hotter than the surface of the Sun. Wilson Greatbatch Going to a grammar school, you mixed with all sorts of different types and I used to listen to how they talked. When I did my imitations, I could sound like someone really rough, or I could sound like a cabinet minister. Steve Coogan When there's a terrible illness like AIDS sweeping through, you help people. Bernadette Peters I love myself. Anything that has my name I'm tickled to death. Barbara Corcoran My career in racing started at a very young age in California. Jeff Gordon People who believe in flying saucers are the scrapings from the bottom. Nigel Kneale Children often have a much stronger concept of morality than adults. Nina Bawden Most politicians aren't allowed to express themselves any more. Ken Livingstone I'm pretty good with not being afraid to just go up to people and introduce myself. Elle Fanning I just keep it simp...

I haven't always acted or reacted in a way that made me proud,

but I didn't make that same mistake twice, and I think that's what I love about adversity is that it always reminds me of what's really valuable in life. Sandra Bullock Many of the crew members I work with and continue to work with were friends or have become close friends, and so we keep working together. And I like casting friends of mine or people I know in parts I know would be perfect for them. I like to bring things and people that mean something to me in to my work. Noah Baumbach I've had shows as a painter, as a photographer, I've done shows as a sculptor. I've done a lot of different things and it all comes from experiences that you have in your life, in your creative environment. They all help - I don't even know if they help; maybe they make it worse but they all influence each other, for sure. Norman Reedus It's very different working with all adults. I have a swear jar so that, if they have a potty mouth, I make them pay. That's...

Sisters are always drying their hair. Locked into rooms, alone, they pose at the mirror,

shoulders bare, trying this way and that their hair, or fly importunate down the stair to answer the telephone. Phyllis McGinley When our Lord says, we must be converted and become as little children, I suppose he means also, that we must be sensible of our weakness, comparatively speaking, as a little child. George Whitefield There's no dancing girls. We're kinda like secondary to the thing. It's a story about these two guys that are in love with this one girl and how it unfolds and what happens. Eric Carr There are men who would quickly love each other if once they were speak to each other; for when they spoke they would discover that their souls had only separated by phantoms and delusions. Ernest Hello If you believe you can, you probably can. If you believe you won't, you most assuredly won't. Belief is the ignition switch that gets you off the launching pad. Denis Waitley Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting. John Russell If there is...

I remember, for the first time, sitting down and consuming books in a matter of

hours. This was such a new experience for me because reading, up until that point, had been such a struggle and source of stress. I think I just needed to find the right kind of stories with which I could identify. John Corey Whaley Having children showed me a whole different kind of love that I had never known. It was something that had always been missing. Complete love. I would die for them. Scott Weiland If I hadn't won at the Worlds and claimed so many ranking points, I would have been struggling for Rio. I'm in a good place now, though, and having the chance to fight for gold in Rio after everything I've been through would be a dream. Bianca Walkden To me, it is like a diabetic with insulin. If that diabetic stops taking insulin, they will die, and I believe that if I don't follow the 12-step programme, I will regress, and that could eventually be the death of me. Trinny Woodall There are maybe 100 actors I look up to, but my first two favourite actors...

During the mission, Walter Jones, a team member was given a package containing bone fragments

by a Lao. The source said they were from a crash site. He presented photographs showing himself in company with others digging around obvious aircraft debris. Bo Gritz Signs of fatigue soon manifested themselves more and more strongly, and slowly the men dropped out one by one, from sheer exhaustion. No murmur of complaint, however, would be heard. Fritz Kreisler It's hard enough to work and raise a family when your kids are all healthy and relatively normal, but when you add on some kind of disability or disease, it can just be such a burden. Patricia Heaton The thing that makes 'Dirty Jobs' different is that it's one of the few shows that portrays work in a way that doesn't highlight the drudgery. Instead, it highlights the humor. Mike Rowe I'm most comfortable with the Southern dialects, really. It's easy, for example, for me to do Irish because we've got Irish heritage where I come from. Brad Pitt Sight and touch, being thus increased ...

The fall of 1912 my fielding was above the average, but my hitting was not

so good. However, I was the talk of the town because of my peculiar way of catching a fly ball. They later named it the Vest-Pocket Catch. Rabbit Maranville Roald Dahl worked with other illustrators, but it was only when he teamed up with Quentin Blake that the chemistry began to fizz. Quentin Blake is Britain's greatest living illustrator and has that special talent all the great illustrators have, of unobtrusive brilliance. Chris Riddell I made my parents crazy. As a kid, I redecorated my bedroom every month. I would literally save my allowance and go buy things. Nate Berkus You have, unfortunately, a K-12 educational system where the requirements to graduate are not the requirements to be college and career-ready. So if you want young adults who are college and career-ready, our K-12 system right now does not have that as its standard. Gerald Chertavian Economics is all about consumption. People either spend money now or they use financial instruments - like bonds, s...

We are brunch hounds. We also like movie dates. There's a lot of diners, a

lot of movies. We're 'simple pleasures' people. It doesn't have to be crazy. It could be a 'Law and Order' marathon on the couch, or it could be dinner or a show. We like to mix it up. Rob McClure You're breaking up, you're getting together, you're changing your life, you're arguing with your parents, you're making terrible mistakes, you're having great triumphs. It's what happens to teenagers. Jason Katims I like a fragrance that you notice and want to find out more about - get a bit closer. I don't want to walk in and be jolted awake by someone's smell. Chris Pine The brain is a complex biological organ possessing immense computational capability: it constructs our sensory experience, regulates our thoughts and emotions, and controls our actions. Eric Kandel To learn to do backflips and front flips, you had to fall and bump your head a couple times. I've been doing them since I was a little one, though. Just ...

The mentally ill may have shattered lives, but how that is different than the way

sin distorts our ability to comprehend who we are as God's creatures is not clear. Stanley Hauerwas New technologies can be used for destructive purposes. The answer is to develop rapid-response systems for new dangers like a bioterrorist creating a new biological virus. Ray Kurzweil For the most part, congressional Republicans represent people who are whiter, older and richer than most Americans, and our creaky old political system gives those Americans disproportionate influence over public policy. Alex Pareene Every single director stops at the moment he thinks he has the shot. Sometimes, directors shoot an establishing shot where everything is in the shot. He's going to use this at the beginning and the end. Javier Camara If you put me in the fairway at my average distance into a par 4, 175 to 180 yards, and you put another player in the rough 120 yards from the green, over time, I'm going to wear him out. Zach Johnson Visit those who are sick, or who are...

You sweat out the free agent thing in November then you make the trades in

December. Then you struggle to sign the guys left in January and in February I get down to sewing all the new numbers on the uniforms. Whitey Herzog Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat. Robert A. Heinlein Man's real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so. Edgar Allan Poe I am a really bad test taker. I can get straight As in school, but I get nervous on test. Mary-Kate Olsen This age thinks better of a gilded fool Than of a threadbare saint in wisdom's school. Thomas Dekker Inflated descriptions by the pen or exaggerated illustrations by the pencil. Grace Darling The past grows gradually around one, like a placenta for dying. John Berger

My next book is also set in the eighteenth century. It's about the Revolution, with

the focus on the year 1776. It's about Washington and the army and the war. It's the nadir, the low point of the United States of America. David McCullough You have to be there not for the fame and glory and recognition and being a page in a history book, but you have to be there because you believe your talent and ability can be applied effectively to operation of the spacecraft. Alan Shepard For most of our young lives, my family was baffled by elementary school bake sales, to which we were told to bring in goodies to sell. While other kids arrived bearing brownies, chocolate chip cookies, and apple pies, Chinese families didn't bake. Jennifer Lee I have a really great family, and when I'm not filming, I go home and walk the dogs, take out the garbage, clean my room, all that stuff. My family and my friends keep me in line, and make sure I don't get crazy. Abigail Breslin There is no better illustration of that crisis than the fact that the president i...