Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When I was operating as one of President Reagan's economic advisers, an early assignment was to analyze the federal government's landholdings and make recommendations about what to do with them. This was a big job. These lands are vast, covering an area six times that of France.
When I switched to screenplays - 'cause I had done musicals and plays - the first assignment in film school was, you have to write a silent film. And it's tremendously helpful to learn how to do that because dialogue can be a crutch. If you can master a silent film, you're golden.
It's pretty amazing to write under any circumstances when someone gives you an assignment to write a song, even if it doesn't get accepted. I've written songs a couple of times, some for Disney, that haven't actually ended up in their films, but then you're left with a song forever.
Be serious. You've got to do the job you were hired to do well, but there's always more you can do. When I was an assistant, I would say to myself, 'You may not be an executive, but act like one.' I would volunteer for any creative assignment - read scripts, do 'coverage,' write notes.
The first programming assignment I had in high school was to find the first 100 Fibonacci numbers. Instead, I thought it would be cooler to write a program to get the teacher's password and all the other students' passwords. And the teacher gave me an A and told the class how smart I was.
The greatest promotion I ever had on a newspaper was when 'The Washington Post' suddenly promoted me from city-side general assignment reporter to Latin American correspondent and sent me off to Cuba. Fidel Castro had just come to power. It was a very exciting assignment, but also very serious.
Writing an essay is like a school assignment: I have my topic, I organize my thoughts, and I write it. I have complete control over what I'm doing. Writing a novel is like setting out on a journey without knowing who or what I'll encounter, how long it's going to take, or where I'm going to end up.
For 30 years I've been schooled in everything from government, and economics, to medicine and international relations. But don't be impressed. Someone once said being a general assignment reporter simply means you are equally ignorant about most everything. In other words, I know a little about a lot.
Color always vexed me because I would fight with the media I was using. I love coloring in Photoshop, and it's freed me to pursue ideas and techniques I wouldn't have otherwise attempted. Since I get to take an assignment from concept to final execution, I have more freedom in my idea-making processes.
On returning to India I took up a short assignment as assistant to the secretary of jury at the International Film Festival, and Satyajit Ray was the chairman. He was on the lookout for an assistant, and that's how I went to Kolkata. I learnt a lot - the discipline, conceptualization, planning your shots.
When I was a kid in junior high, I had an assignment to discuss how to rescue poor people in India. I remember my teacher at the time considered it an impossible problem. Now, we're not talking that way anymore. We're sure not talking about that for China. They're rescuing themselves thanks to globalization.
When I was nine years old, I wrote a short story called 'How to Build a Snowman,' from which no practical snowperson-crafting techniques could be gleaned. The story was an assignment for class and it featured a series of careful but meaningless instructions. Of course, the building of the snowman was a red herring.
Anybody who likes writing a book is an idiot. Because it's impossible; it's like having a homework assignment every stinking day until it's done. And by the time you get it in, it's done and you're sitting there reading it, and you realize the 12,000 things you didn't do. I mean, writing isn't fun. It's never been fun.
To qualify the term 'boss' by adding 'girl' or 'babe' or 'honey' or 'pink' or whatever other ridiculous, antiquated-gender role assignment the media thinks is cute this month, is, at the least, disrespectful and at the worst, damaging to the way young women view themselves and our fight for equality in the business world.
When I was in lower school, I graduated from fourth grade, and the principal gave us a summer assignment to take a 30-minute reflection period every day. And, of course, there were no cell phones at the time. She said to just think. And that's lost. It doesn't exist anymore. Just imagine being on a couch and just thinking.
The book that blew the doors off the house, grabbing me with its breathtakingly deep and irresistible view of the universe and our relation to it, was 'Intelligent Life in the Universe' by I. S. Shklovskii and Carl Sagan. I recall an enchanting all-nighter completing a college homework assignment to read the first chapter.
Not long after I was married, World War II began. My husband John volunteered for the Navy and was sent to Pensacola for training as a Naval Combat Air Crew photographer. It seemed a strange assignment for a young newspaper editor and writer, already exempt, but off he went, saying goodbye to our 18-month-old Johnny and me.
I advise, if you're stymied by a passage or paragraph or plot point - whether it's for an assignment from the outside world or one that comes only from within - get up from wherever you're sitting, walk outdoors, and do nothing but look at the sky for five minutes. Just stare at that thing. Then execute a small bow and go back in.
When you're given the assignment to write, for example, 'Spider-Man,' the concept, characters and environment are all laid out for you. Everything is pre-established, and your sole responsibility as a creator is to craft an exciting, entertaining, hopefully original adventure, to add layers and colors to a canon that already exists.
When you are on assignment, you stick to the facts, limit your vision, and often cut out the most revealing material. There is no texture, no shades of gray. In fiction, you can bring the reader on the perilous journey with your characters as they discover that war is more like a wilderness of mirrors, full of danger and uncertainty.
I believe to be a leader is to enable others to embrace a vision, initiative or assignment in a way that they feel a sense of purpose, ownership, personal engagement, and common cause. I was very affected as a child by my father's positive example as a civic leader who inspired others to share his commitment to improving our community.
I experienced the G League in two forms: one as an assignment player, and then one of actually being in the G League after I got cut by the Bulls. Obviously, both situations are different. You actually sort of still get treated like an NBA player when you're on assignment. When you're in G League on contract, you're down there for real.
With The King Center as her base, my mother pressed on to fulfill a role that changed lives and legislation. She was a woman who refused to surrender the reigns of what she knew to be her assignment, even when male civil rights and business leaders tried to convince her that she should leave the work of building her husband's legacy to them.
If I feel like I haven't really tapped into the essence of the story when I do an assignment, I may revisit it on my own, and that's when I feel freer to add my imagination. But I think that if you feel imaginatively towards a subject, you really shouldn't do it in a journalistic context, because then you're just fabricating, and that's crazy.
Our job as friends, mentors, parents, and writing coaches is not to write anyone's college essay. That's cheating. Plus, it sends a discouraging message to the teenager that he or she can't be trusted with this important assignment. Trust the student to write the essay, but verify that it gets done. Gentle editing and proofreading are allowed.