The thing that upsets me the most is the entitlement of people that will stand with a flag and say to some other people that they need to go back to where they came from. When, in fact, they also would need to go back to where they came from, because you need to go all the way back to the beginning.
So never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself.
I've found that in fiction - and this is just the kind of writer I am - I can't really work from an outline. I have a vague idea of the characters at the beginning of the book, and then I have a vague idea of whatever the end of the book will be, but I can't approach creative nonfiction like that.
'The Paris Review's mandate has been the same for fifty years. First and foremost, this magazine is for writers; the editors' task is to support and celebrate them, especially at the beginning of their careers, but also as they move forward, venturing stories that are creative, risky, new.
All the things you're not supposed to do at the beginning of your professional life - transgressiveness, arbitrariness and violating expectations - you find more attractive at the end of your professional life.
I went to school to learn guitar, solfeggio, and harmony. I wanted to know more about music, how it works. I wanted to take voice lessons, too, and that's when I discovered what I could do with my voice. At the beginning, I thought I would do classical and pop, but then I learned that I really liked the classical music.
Think about 'GoodFellas': It could be a textbook on how not to write a screenplay. It leans on voice-over at the beginning, then abandons it for a while, then the character just talks right into the camera at the end. That structure is so unusual that you don't have any sense of what's going to happen next.
From the beginning, the Continental Congress had official chaplains, prayers, and days of fasting and Thanksgiving. When sessions opened in 1774, fear was voiced that the religious diversity of the country would make it hard to choose a form of worship.
I was a 'Warcraft' player myself, and when I pitched my take on the film, they said right away, 'That is a player. That is the game.' So I've had their support from the very beginning.
It would seem that the Watergate story from beginning to end could be used as a primer on the American political system.
The profusion of fonts is one more product of the digital revolution. Beginning in the mid-'80s and accelerating in the 1990s, type design weathered the sort of radical, technology-driven transformation that other creative industries, including music, publishing, and movies, now face.
Nothing is more beautiful than the love that has weathered the storms of life. The love of the young for the young, that is the beginning of life. But the love of the old for the old, that is the beginning of things longer.
But then in April of 1985 the dollar began a sharp decline. The dollar's trade weighted value fell 23 percent in just 12 months and by a total of 37 percent by the beginning of 1988.
Well, 'The Wellspring' was written from 1983 to 1986. And it had a section in the beginning that was poems that began from others' experience.
I watched the night unfold from beginning to end on my own here in my flat in Budapest where I've been working for the last six months, and when it was announced that Barack Obama was indeed president-elect, I wept.
This is not the beginning of American civilization where we need guns because it's the Wild, Wild West... There should not be guns in our society, and we all know that; politicians know that.
But the community knew Blade, and everybody but us was shocked at the box office, and subsequently the DVD. That was the beginning of the DVD revolution, and Blade was just like wildfire.
The original 'Star Wars' that I was a part of really was the beginning of my working life.
Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.
For all I know, I am beginning with the ending. My page one can wind up a year later as page two hundred, if it's still even around.
