Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I've always listened to music while I write, but none of my work has been so directly impacted by a song as my new novel, 'So Cold the River,' for which the brilliant strings piece 'Short Trip Home,' composed by Edgar Meyer and featuring the incredible Joshua Bell on violin, inspired much of the story.
According to me when former governors join the political mainstream, the whole cause propagated for autonomy of the institutions, itself gets impacted. When they dwell into statements which are politically loaded, rather than during their tenure as a governor, it is far easier to analyse those statements.
I think about issues like climate change, and how six of the 10 worst impacted nations by climate change are actually on the continent of Africa. People are reeling from all sorts of unnatural disasters, displacing them from their ancestral homes and leaving them without a chance at making a decent living.
After I got my gold medal, I thought, 'This isn't just me. It belongs to my team, my friends, my family, the fans, everybody who's impacted my life - this is our gold medal.' So when someone asks to try it on, I'm like, 'Sure, why not?' I might be a little too relaxed about it, but why would I keep it to myself?
The fact that we walked away from the Middle East, as distasteful as it was for us to stay involved and prevent wars, based on our long involvement there, we have helped to create and provide a foundation. Obviously for ISIS and also for the absolute barbarianism and human catastrophe that Assad impacted on his people.
Success is not defined by money or status, necessarily, but by how many people you've impacted and how fulfilled you feel with your decisions. If you can garner all of these things, then more power and success to you, but all in all, you must feel happy and satisfied with what you personally have put out into the world.
The Internet is part of my job, so I have to approach it with a level of professionalism. I don't necessarily think it's changed who I am, but if anything, it's impacted the opportunities that have come into my life and the people that I've been able to develop relationships with - which I'm very fortunate and thankful for.
One respect in which I'm very much my father's son is how I feel about Joyce. 'Ulysses' is very much about daily life, when you get into this other guy's life and you learn about the things he cares about, and why he cares about them. And then, very indirectly, very subtly, you learn why politics has impacted his life, too.
I talk all the time about how much I read growing up and how much I love Stephen King and how he impacted my work from a genre perspective, but Pat Conroy wrote some of the most magnificent stories about characters who had to deal with dysfunctional families and try to find a place of honor in their own world and the pain of loss.
We have never owned, as a country, the damage done not only to people who were enslaved but to future generations in which they were treated. I think that has damaged the future of many African-American people. Some have risen above it quite nobly, but it has impacted generations, and we have to be able to own that as part of the past.
It never occurred to me that I was important enough to have some politician go out of his way to silence me. I only found out about it in the '80s by accident - a broadcaster announced they received letters of commendation from the White House for having suppressed my music. My career was so highly impacted in the U.S. it will never recover.
