The United States particularly abandoned Liberia after the end of the Cold War.

A couple of years I taught in graduate programs at NYU and Columbia, in the early eighties.

If you dedicate your attention to discipline in your life you become smarter while you are writing than while you are hanging out with your pals or in any other line of work.

John Brown first swam into my vision in the 1960s when I was a political activist in the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement at Chapel Hill, where I went to university.

Like Neanderthals, men prefer to hunt alone or, if in a pack, at the head of it. Women, whether in the field or in a campfire, are collaborative, and when they hunt...they work together.

Lists of books we reread and books we can't finish tell more about us than about the relative worth of the books themselves.

Loyalty is weird, it kicks in when you dont expect it and the people who deserve loyalty least seem to get it the most.

For almost anyone who chooses to be a writer, since so very few writers are able to learn a living from their work that is equivalent to the living earned by the average dentist or accountant.

Chimpanzees are endangered. Severely.

Let the truth take care of itself, I decided. It's done all right on its own so far.

The best thing about writing programs is that it rationalized the apprenticeship of a writer.

Seeing someone reading a book you love is seeing a book recommending a person

There is slow growth, but it is positive slow growth. At the same time, ratios of debt-to-incomes go down. That's a beautiful deleveraging.

Moonstruck... was one of the few romantic comedies to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.

'Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow,' if you go through the lyrics, is such a haunting melody, and the words are, for a pop song, pretty deep and dark.

I won't mention names, but in my career, the most talented people invariably are the easiest and nicest to get along with.

The only real security in life lies in relishing life's insecurity.

Treat yourself with love and respect, and you will attract people who show you love and respect.

I work for myself, which is fun. Except when I call in sick, I know I'm lying.

Beauty is necessarily shrouded in mystery--which is part of its splendour.

The leading members of ISIS were either tortured in US military prisons or in the prisons of the Shi'a government which the Americans put in place.