Sometimes, it takes leaving to gain some perspective. I see that clearly every time I leave Washington, D.C., and return to Indiana. I see the bizarre bubble that seems to enclose the Beltway and makes people forget what regular people care about.
I began to write in an enclosed, self-confident literary culture. The poet's life stood in a burnished light in the Ireland of that time. Poets were still poor, had little sponsored work, and could not depend on a sympathetic reaction to their poetry. But the idea of the poet was honored.
Franschhoek - French Corner - is a place which serves South Africans as a kind of sophisticated fantasy, an alternative version of what life could be. The small town is enclosed by wild mountains, at this time of year blue and dusty green.
There is something powerful about singing to God as an act of worship, but it is time to reframe our perspective and our language to genuinely encompass all of life as worship.
The Earth has been lawned with life for something over 3.5 billion years. That's a span of time great enough to encompass some honest-to-goodness catastrophe. For example, 700 million years ago, Earth underwent a planet-wide deep freeze, with ice covering the oceans from the poles to the equator.
It takes such a commitment of passion and energy and time, and it's all so encompassing to direct that you've got to see the bullseye, and you know you can hit it - or at least get awfully close.
What I love about Encores! is that it's a tremendous amount of work in a short amount of time, but it's just so festive and so celebratory and fun. It harkens back to the old days of just getting together and putting on a show.
Nevertheless, whether in occurrences lasting days, hours or mere minutes at a time, I have experienced happiness often, and have had brief encounters with it in my later years, even in old age.
Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth.
I sold a bunch of stuff. I sold Omaha Steaks, vacation packages... the worst, though, was Time Life Books, because no one wants Time Life Books. No one wants an 'Encyclopedia Brittanica' showing up at their house.
At the end of the day, when it comes time to make that decision, as president, all you have to guide you are your values, and your vision, and the life experiences that make you who you are.
Retiring for good wasn't difficult. I knew at the time it was right. I was no longer capable of achieving the standards I'd set myself and there was no light at the end of the tunnel.
Every time I'm shooting a movie I want to kill myself. Because I don't see the light in the end of the tunnel.
I only ever play Vegas one night at a time. It's a hideous, gaudy place; it may not be the end of the world per se, but you can certainly see it from there.
I don't listen to my songs. The only time I do it is when someone points out a flaw in the end product.
Artists need support, time and money to develop their ideas, and if people rip stuff off, you don't have to be that brilliant to figure out that you're ultimately going to affect the end product.
I don't take on a project unless I know the end result is going to make me happy. If I can't give 100 percent to something, I choose not to do it because it's very difficult to have so many pots on the fire at one time.
I think you have to make time for yourself so that work doesn't become the end-all be-all.
It's a really skewed part of our culture that happiness is the end-all be-all. The people that force themselves to be happy all the time often end up being the most broken.
For almost two centuries, American gray wolves, vilified in fact as well as fiction, were the victims of vicious government extermination programs. By the time the Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973, only a few hundred of these once-great predators were left in the lower 48 states.
