Americans are so often thrown by Japan. It looks familiar but, an inch below the surface, it isn't anything like the West at all.

the Japanese school year begins in spring ... so mothers can send off their children as cherry blossoms fall from the branches.

The process of unlearning in order to relearn demands a new concept of knowledge not as thing but as a process, not as a noun but as a verb.

Games are unquestionably the single most important cultural form of the digital age.

Leaving can sometimes be the best way to never go away.

[R]eality and real people are too subtle and complicated for anybody's typewriter, even Tolstoy's, even yours, even mine.

The champion wins first, then walks into the arena. Everybody else walks into the arena and then tries to figure out what to do.

I said I *liked* being half-educated

I wish to be buried in Ireland, the country of my adoption a country which I loved, which I have dutifully served, and for which I believe I have sacrificed my life.

I like when I use music in film that it isn't just gilding the lily and it isn't telling you how to feel. It's giving you something, some other information that you cannot otherwise get in the scene.

All knowledge is in response to a question. If there were no question, there would be no scientific knowledge. Nothing proceeds from itself.

Lessons are not to take the place of practice, but to make practice worthwhile.

The Beatles did their best cover work on Little Richard's 'Long Tall Sally' and music influenced by Richard, such as Larry Williams's 'Dizzy Miss Lizzie.

When I try to describe myself to God I say, 'Lord, remember me? Black? Female? Six-foot tall? The writer?' And I almost always get God's attention.

Those who are passionate about what they do have an advantage that is nearly impossible to overcome. In passion there is energy, creativity, resilience and persistence. Passion will get it done.