It's impossible to walk a block in Miami, in Los Angeles, San Antonio without running into someone who is being deeply impacted by a broken legal immigration system.
The Chilean novelist Isabel Allende says there's no such thing as writer's block, you just need to live a bit more. I try to bear that in mind.
Something that had an enormous influence over my relationship with language was my stammer. I had a really bad stammer in my childhood and adolescence, and that imbues you with two things. First, a hyper-sensitivity to grammar, because a stammerer will have problematic sounds, impossible verbal stumbling blocks. Second, writing is just such a joy when you have a problem with speaking. It's so astonishing to watch language coming out of your pen without any hesitation or dysfluency.
My father had been in the military and he was a weapons specialist, so he had an affinity for weapons but also for the discipline of it. He taught us how to shoot when we were young. He opened up karate schools in the worst parts of the city, on purpose, and then he would systematically clean out a three-block radius, all of the gang-bangers and drug dealers and everybody of nefarious character.
Most artists have experienced the creative block. We get stuck in our work. We beat our head against the wall: nothing. Sometimes, it is because we are trying something at the wrong time.
As my mind can conceive of more good, the barriers and blocks dissolve. My life becomes full of little miracles popping up out of the blue.
I've never really suffered complete and utter writer's block, really. I equate it with sex: in the beginning of my career, I was writing five songs a week; now, I occasionally write a song. But it's an exciting moment when it happens!
I've probably put up with more criticism than a lot of people out there. At the end of the day, you block out everything, especially with your personal life.
When HSBC took the painting out of their building, they had to block the road and use a crane to bring the painting out from the window. They spent about 20,000 dollars just to get the painting out of the building! They said not to bring it back, and told Sotheby's to sell it immediately!
One question:do you want to hang ten or BE a ten?"-Massie Block
Roger Federer and my boyfriend, Tiger Woods, inspire me. It's incredible what they've done in their respective sports, especially Roger. He is the nicest and humblest guy. You would never know that he's the best tennis player of all time. And Tiger is so mentally tough. He can block everything completely out and stay in the moment.
We are ourselves the stumbling-blocks in the way of our happiness. Place a common individual - by common, I mean with the common share of stupidity, custom, and discontent - place him in the garden of Eden, and he would not find it out unless he were told, and when told, he would not believe it.
Happiness is more about removing the blocks to Love and remembering who you are than changing your situation or another person.
The Internet is perfect for delivering large blocks of text to people throughout the world for free. That's a plus. The downside is the ADD, the Internet-addled Attention Deficit Disorder.
I went through that stage every teenager goes through: Who am I? What am I? Where do I fit in? In my case I had to deal with newspapers saying I looked fat or tired or my hair was a mess. People always criticize: they either love you, or they don't. But you have to block that out and concentrate on the work. And I feel I am doing good work, and I'm finally getting to see who I really am.
I want to be in fifth grade again. Now, that is a deep dark secret, almost as big as the other one. Fifth grade was easy -- old enough to play outside without Mom, too young to go off the block. The perfect leash length.
If you go to Wikipedia and you look at the Tour de France, there's this huge block in World War One with no winners, and there's another block in World War Two. And then it seems like there's another world war.
The unwillingness to accept anything short of victory, that underlying fury, is the fundamental building block of my bottomless motivation to succeed. It is my credo in all that I do in life from battling cancer to bicycle racing.
Sunblock! I don't like to tan my face because it's bad for wrinkles.
I'm not trying to create an aesthetic that's my own; I'm trying to create a way understanding things through drawing and painting. That's the common thread. Things can look different, but that's not what's important. What's important is the process is the same, the ideas are the same, I'm using the same building blocks, but they're different. The larger framework is the same; it's the pieces that change. For me, it's about these different elements, but you're still fitting them together into sentences, words, paragraphs, and stories.
The [UN Security Council] P5 ought to be dissuaded from using their veto power, which can paralyze the United Nations. The country blocking action ought to have to explain its decision and propose an alternative solution. It has been suggested that a veto only becomes effective if the vetoing state has the support of two or three other permanent members.
Unfortunately, our [american] workplace rules are stuck in the seventies, when, out of a block of 10 houses, in more than half of them the husband went to work and the wife stayed home. Now on that same block almost eight of the wives work. That's one reason why I want equal pay for equal work, and why affordable day care, early childhood education, and universal pre-K are so important to me.
But when there were certain moments or scenes that required a very specific nuance or performance, I myself would act out the scene or the sequence and that would inspire the actors. Of course, I can't really express emotions on camera, but I was very active in showing a certain action or a blocking for an actor. I would also participate in certain stunts myself and because of that, I would get bruises or cuts on my knees and elbows.
Your field report might be the reason someone detoured six blocks, say, on their way to the chiropractor.
Apple has never allowed ad-blocking software on the iPhone or iPad. This is one among many reasons that I ditched both. Not because I hate ads all that passionately, but because it's an example of the obsessive corporate control Apple maintains over its environment.