Interview Inspirational Quotes

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

Anger ... it's a paralyzing emotion ... you can't get anything done. People sort of think it's an interesting, passionate, and igniting feeling — I don't think it's any of that — it's helpless ... it's absence of control — and I need all of my skills, all of the control, all of my powers ... and anger doesn't provide any of that — I have no use for it whatsoever." [Interview with CBS radio host Don Swaim, September 15, 1987.]

All men are created equal. Now matter how hard they try, they can never erase those words. That is what America is about.

I know that you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. And you...And you...And you...Gotta give em hope.

In his suicide note, Kurt Cobain wrote, "It's better to burn out than to fade away." He was quoting a Neil Young song about Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols. When I was twenty-four, I interviewed John Lennon. I asked him about this sentiment, one that pervades rock and roll. He took strong, outraged exception to it. "It's better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out, " he said. "I worship people who survive. I'll take the living and the healthy.

I have three rules to live by: Get your work done. If that doesn't work, shut up and drink your gin, and when all else fails, run like hell.

We mark with light in the memory the few interviews we have had with souls that made our souls wiser, that spoke what we thought, that told us what we knew, that gave us leave to be what we inly are.

I started out of course with Hemingway when I learned how to write. Until I realized Hemingway doesn't have a sense of humor. He never has anything funny in his stories.

One night a friend lent me a book of short stories by Franz Kafka. I went back to the pension where I was staying and began to read The Metamorphosis. The first line almost knocked me off the bed. I was so surprised. The first line reads, “As Gregor Samsa awoke that morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. . . .” When I read the line I thought to myself that I didn’t know anyone was allowed to write things like that. If I had known, I would have started writing a long time ago. So I immediately started writing short stories.

I was asked in an interview which was more important: money or love? I told the interviewer that if he had to ask the question, he wouldn't understand the answer.

Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old-fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he'll eventually make some kind of career for himself as writer." [1967 interview]

I tell my girls when you have done everything humanly possible, when you have fought with everything in you for something you truly believe in and it is still out of reach, it's time to become a feather. Let the wind guide you for awhile....

Study, along the lines which the theologies have mapped, will never lead us to discovery of the fundamental facts of our existence. That goal must be attained by means of exact science and can only be achieved by such means. The fact that man, for ages, has superstitiously believed in what he calls a God does not prove at all that his theory has been right. There have been many gods – all makeshifts, born of inability to fathom the deep fundamental truth. There must be something at the bottom of existence, and man, in ignorance, being unable to discover what it is through reason, because his reason has been so imperfect, undeveloped, has used, instead, imagination, and created figments, of one kind or another, which, according to the country he was born in, the suggestions of his environment, satisfied him for the time being. Not one of all the gods of all the various theologies has ever really been proved. We accept no ordinary scientific fact without the final proof; why should we, then, be satisfied in this most mighty of all matters, with a mere theory? Destruction of false theories will not decrease the sum of human happiness in future, any more than it has in the past... The days of miracles have passed. I do not believe, of course, that there was ever any day of actual miracles. I cannot understand that there were ever any miracles at all. My guide must be my reason, and at thought of miracles my reason is rebellious. Personally, I do not believe that Christ laid claim to doing miracles, or asserted that he had miraculous power... Our intelligence is the aggregate intelligence of the cells which make us up. There is no soul, distinct from mind, and what we speak of as the mind is just the aggregate intelligence of cells. It is fallacious to declare that we have souls apart from animal intelligence, apart from brains. It is the brain that keeps us going. There is nothing beyond that. Life goes on endlessly, but no more in human beings than in other animals, or, for that matter, than in vegetables. Life, collectively, must be immortal, human beings, individually, cannot be, as I see it, for they are not the individuals – they are mere aggregates of cells. There is no supernatural. We are continually learning new things. There are powers within us which have not yet been developed and they will develop. We shall learn things of ourselves, which will be full of wonders, but none of them will be beyond the natural. [Columbian Magazine interview]

My first interview was with eighty-eight-year-old folk artist Marcia Muth… ‘Your life does change as you get older,’ she told me. ‘You get into what’s important and what’s not’.

Everyone at some point in life have faced rejection and failure, it is part of the process to self realisation.

You share with people who've earned the right to hear your story. ...You have to earn the right to hear my story. It's an honor to hold space for me when I'm in shame.

Trying to live up to yourself is the most trying thing.

Whatever it was that I felt was the weak link in my previous project gave me inspiration for the next one.

Everything that is tearing us down today will become a memory, and this memory will be shared as an anecdote or a story or a poem or a play or a warning. It will be shared with another human being, who will then understand that he is not alone in his sadness. This is why we show up for others and tell our tales and listen to others. The great congregation meets daily, and you are someone’s angel today. (In an Interview with James Grissom)

...empathy is the most important power there is. Without it, we are doomed. With it, we can truly change the world. (interview from USC)

Interviews are a qualitative form of collecting data. The reason it generates good responses is because it’s way more personal than other forms of data gathering techniques.

History as a whole is the struggle between love and the inability to love, between love and the refusal to love.

A person's success is often limited by the level of their desire to succeed

We can block our blessings with one thought, one decision. Sometimes your blessing may require certain actions on your behalf. You asked for the job? Now, you must get dressed and go to the interview and prove yourself worthy of the position. When you move, you activate your faith. And, suddenly everything falls into place. Faith without works is dead.

I know I will always be attracted to the unknown as it does often verify what I am or what else I could be.

It was the general opinion of ancient nations, that the divinity alone was adequate to the important office of giving laws to men... and modern nations, in the consecrations of kings, and in several superstitious chimeras of divine rights in princes and nobles, are nearly unanimous in preserving remnants of it... Is the jealousy of power, and the envy of superiority, so strong in all men, that no considerations of public or private utility are sufficient to engage their submission to rules for their own happiness? Or is the disposition to imposture so prevalent in men of experience, that their private views of ambition and avarice can be accomplished only by artifice? — … There is nothing in which mankind have been more unanimous; yet nothing can be inferred from it more than this, that the multitude have always been credulous, and the few artful. The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature: and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had any interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the inspiration of heaven, any more than those at work upon ships or houses, or labouring in merchandize or agriculture: it will for ever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses. As Copley painted Chatham, West, Wolf, and Trumbull, Warren and Montgomery; as Dwight, Barlow, Trumbull, and Humphries composed their verse, and Belknap and Ramzay history; as Godfrey invented his quadrant, and Rittenhouse his planetarium; as Boylston practised inoculation, and Franklin electricity; as Paine exposed the mistakes of Raynal, and Jefferson those of Buffon, so unphilosophically borrowed from the Recherches Philosophiques sur les Américains those despicable dreams of de Pauw — neither the people, nor their conventions, committees, or sub-committees, considered legislation in any other light than ordinary arts and sciences, only as of more importance. Called without expectation, and compelled without previous inclination, though undoubtedly at the best period of time both for England and America, to erect suddenly new systems of laws for their future government, they adopted the method of a wise architect, in erecting a new palace for the residence of his sovereign. They determined to consult Vitruvius, Palladio, and all other writers of reputation in the art; to examine the most celebrated buildings, whether they remain entire or in ruins; compare these with the principles of writers; and enquire how far both the theories and models were founded in nature, or created by fancy: and, when this should be done, as far as their circumstances would allow, to adopt the advantages, and reject the inconveniences, of all. Unembarrassed by attachments to noble families, hereditary lines and successions, or any considerations of royal blood, even the pious mystery of holy oil had no more influence than that other of holy water: the people universally were too enlightened to be imposed on by artifice; and their leaders, or more properly followers, were men of too much honour to attempt it. Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favour of the rights of mankind. [Preface to 'A Defence of the Constitutions of the United States of America', 1787]

The Game of Go was one of the 4 Arts of China. It spread to all over Asia and was even mentioned in the Japanese novel, Tales of Genji. More than an ancient board game, the Game of Go is an analogy of life and emphasize balance, challenge, and fun. Not only does my name Kailin Gow has the word "Go" in it, but my philosophy on life of balance, challenge, and fun is similar to the Game. Thus, Kailin Gow's Go Girl TV Series, books, and overall brand reflects this philosophy as well. - Kailin Gow in interview about Kailin Gow's Go Girl Books and TV Series.

Sitting around waiting for inspiration is for amateurs. If you’re a professional, you show up every day at work.

Just because you can speak louder than me does not make you more right!

And the second [thing about the CBS EVENING NEWS that stands out in the mind of Michael J. Fox] was something Katie did later in the interview, as the drugs kicked in and the tremors segued into the jerkiness of dyskinesias. Somewhere in the contortions of making a point, my left arm detached the microphone clip from my jacket lapel. With no fuss and hardly a break in conversation or eye contact, she calmly leaned over and refastened it. Neither of us commented on it, but it was such an empathetic gesture, so far from anything patronizing or pitying, a simple kindness that allowed me the dignity to carry on making a point more important than the superficiality of my physical circumstance... ...One thing was abundantly clear though, whether or not she was able to forget how much she liked me: with that single act of consideration, she made it abundantly clear how much she loved her father.

I wanted none of it finally. And, deserving nothing better, I closed up like a spider in the flame of a match. And even Armand who was my constant companion, and my only companion, existed at a great distance from me, beyond that veil which separated me from all living things, a veil which was a form of shroud.

Everything seems overwhelming when you stand back and look at the totality of it. I build a lot of stuff and it would all seem impossible if I didn't break it down piece by piece, stage by stage. The best gift you can give yourself is some drive--that thing inside of you that gets you out the door to the gym, job interviews, and dates. The believe-in-yourself adage is grossly overrated.

A few years back, an American Jewish feminist academic sent me a request for an interview... The professor presented herself as a `gender scholar`, another postmodernist discipline that fails to inspire my intellect. However, I was curious to see what a person who happens to be academically qualified in being a woman might come up with.

I was blessed to be that person in school who was friends with everyone and got along with every group and cliques in school. I was never bullied in high school, and was in Drama, newspaper, sports, pep, and school politics. Guess I was popular enough too to be voted for things too. So where do all the angst and teenage books come from? From the rest of life, imagination, stepping into the shoes of someone, and some incidences in my own life...especially when it deals with romance. Been there and done that...now I'm happily married ever after to a man like the kind I write about and live in and travel to glamorous and exciting places. This wouldn't happen if I didn't have the confidence to believe in myself and to pursue what I love. - Kailin Gow in Interview.

The farm is a base of operations–a stronghold. You can withdraw into yourself there. Solitude for reflection is an essential ingredient in self-development. I think a person has to be withdrawn into himself to gather inspiration so that he is somebody when he comes out again among folks–when he “comes to market’ with himself. He learns that he’s got to be almost wastefully alone.

One of the timeless secrets to a long, happy life is to love your work. The golden thread running through the lives of history’s most satisfied people is that they all loved what they did for a living. When psychologist Vera John-Steiner interviewed one hundred creative people, she found they all had one thing in common: an intense passion for their work. Spending your days doing work that you find rewarding, intellectually challenging and fun will do more than all the spa vacations in the world to keep your spirits high and your heart engaged.

Romance… affection… these are what give our lives value. They justify all the suffering of life. My goal is to always reinvent heroic romances and present larger-than-life characters that will inspire readers to fall in love and expand their own lives.

I wrote every day throughout my twenties. For a while, I had a boyfriend who was a musician, and he practiced every day. He played scales; I wrote small fictional scenes. It was the same idea - to keep your hand in your craft, to stay close to it. On bad days, when I felt no inspiration at all, I would set the kitchen timer for thirty minutes and make myself sit there and scribble something, anything. I had read an interview with John Updike where he said that some of the best novels you've ever read were written in an hour a day; I figured I could always carve out at least thirty minutes somewhere to dedicate myself to my work, no matter what else was going on or how badly I believed the work was going.

Great work doesn’t make me jealous; it makes me want to work.

Often times it isn't the quality of your candidates, it's the quality of your interview.

One reason product management is such an appealing career is you get to sit at the intersection of technology, business, and design.

Degree lets you to the chair of interview, but it cannot provide you job

Big Cheese

Everything I did was pure love. Pure love. And if you live that way, you've had a great life. - 'Ray Bradbury: the last interview and other conversations' by Sam Weller (p.92)

Only a God Can Save Us" (German: Nur noch ein Gott kann uns retten)

There is nothing in which mankind have been more unanimous [founding nations upon superstition]; yet nothing can be inferred from it more than this, that the multitude have always been credulous, and the few artful. The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature: and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history... [T]he detail of the formation of the American governments... may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had any interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the inspiration of heaven... it will for ever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses... Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favour of the rights of mankind. [A Defence of the Constitutions of the United States of America, 1787]

About Parlabane, Brookmyre says: "To fully acknowledge the extent of the debt I owe Douglas Adams - as a reader and a writer - would very possibly crash this server, so I will merely cite one significant example. I am frequently asked who was the inspiration for my investigative journalist Jack Parlabane; whether he has some real-life antecedent or represents some indulgent alter-ego of mine. The truth is that Parlabane was entirely inspired by Ford Prefect: I always adored the idea of a character who cheerfully wanders into enormously dangerous situations and effortlessly makes them much worse.

I’m the lady by day, and I’m Gaga by night. And I’m always going to be that way, because it’s a testament to your discipline as a musician. I do like to drink, I like to get crazy, I like to go out with my friends, and I like to sing rock and roll. I used to go-go dance! And I like to be inspired by young artists, people like Millie who are outrageously hard, disciplined individuals. But at the end of the day I’m a classically trained pianist and I’m a singer, and that’s what allows the girl that goes out at night to also go on stage with Tony Bennett at Lincoln Center. Because I know how to do it.

Many more villagers, who have seen an elephant for the first time in their lives, give absurd exaggerations regarding his size, weight, and height. One of them describes him as ‘a fundament!’. Another, elaborating, alludes to the term ‘firmament,’ because of the elephant’s hugeness. He felt as though the sky was obliterated from his vision. The last to be interviewed by the local TV station swears that he sensed the world lean forward as the elephant came closer and tilt backwards as the beast walked away. This large mammal ambles purposefully. He pays no heed to the crowded silence following him in stealthy consciousness. One of the villagers, a woman often suspected of dabbling in witchcraft, talks of her inspired theory: that this was no elephant, more like a human on a holy mission of avenging justice. Two other witnesses, neither having had any contact with the woman, speak in substantiation of the woman’s claims, giving as evidence the observation that the elephant turned around when someone said something in Somali. Several villagers will not comment, afraid of a fitting retribution should they do so.

In 2014, an American television show interviewed Russians about their country’s oppressive laws against the LGBT community. To explain what had inspired her decision to protest these laws, one woman quoted a line from Angel: “If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.

The Anne Rice books are a lot about infection. I read "Interview With the Vampire" a million times when I was in seventh and eighth grade. Also, [writing Gavriel's backstory] definitely came from those books: I sat down and reread them all and thought a lot about… the way in which vampirism is pushing away from humanity in interesting ways, and creating something new from humanity. I imprinted on those books pretty hard. Tanith Lee's "Sabella or the Blood Stone" was a big inspiration. I absolutely loved her books; when I was a kid, I wrote many bad Tanith Lee pastiches. Susie McKee Charnas' "The Vampire Tapestry." Poppy Z. Brite's "Lost Souls." Nancy Collins' "Sunglasses After Dark," which sounds like the most '80s title ever. It's about a vampire named Sonja Blue, and she goes around killing vampires. She's the only vampire who's half-alive. It's a really fun, blood-filled romp. It's very "Blade" before "Blade"--with a lady.

As soon as you begin a film, and the idea begins to germinate, you enter into what I'd call a state of grace in your active relationship to chance. I can say that it's really chance and I that make the film together. (...) You know artists used to talk about inspiration and the muse. The muse! That's amusing! But it's not your muse, it's your relationship with the creative forces that makes things things appear when you need them. Those are the mysteries of my passion for the cinema.

While CEO of P&G, John Pepper was once asked in an interview which skill or characteristic was most important to look for when hiring new employees. Was it leadership? Analytical ability? Problem solving? Collaboration? Strategic thinking? Or something else? His answer was integrity. He explained, “All the rest, we can teach them after they get here.

Limitations are the illusions of our minds. Every single limit you have is the belief that was created during your childhood or by yourself in adulthood. It was created in your own mind. Marie Forleo said in one of her interviews that our beliefs create our thoughts, and our thoughts create our feelings, and our feelings creates our behavior, and our behavior creates our results. So, to change your life, you have to change your belief, but in order to change your belief, you have to go way back and figure out where it comes from.

Preparation, application and determination are three of the most important factors that enable you to regain your sparkle and shine like never before.

Where do you prefer to sit, Sir?" (Lady Alexandra to William, the Duke, during her mail-order bride interview.)

The only private sector industry where employees work with their lives on stake for the interest of common people is media industry.

Opportunities will often come at the unlikeliest of times. Sometimes they're because of instant connections.

Seeing my book mentioned in different interviews and posts is an indescribable feeling. I’ll never take this love for granted. Whatever you’re creating right now, keep going. It is never too late.

what I want to show in my books and in my life is that you don't have to be like the miserable, angry people who hurt you. You can survive and, most of all, you can thrive. Yes, those demons will always be there, and you will hear and, worst of all, feel their cruelty long after they're gone, but you don't have to let them own your future the way they held your past. You don't have to become like them. You can pull it together, hold your head high, and be the person you want to be in spite of their vicious cruelty. They say that there's a reason to everything. I'm not sure I believe that. It's human nature to try and make order out of chaos. The "sometimes things have to go wrong in order to go right" is my own search for understanding why cruelty takes place. I don't understand how anyone can intentionally hurt another person, never mind a child. But I want to help others find the rainbow through the storms. To know that tomorrow is another day and that sooner or later, life will get better. And so will we.

I don't know what to tell you. A statement is easy, and here it is: Be yourself. Try to matter. Be a good friend. Love freely, even if you are likely--almost guaranteed--to be hurt, betrayed. Do what you were created to do. You'll know what this is, because it is what you keep creeping up to, peering at, dreaming of. Do it. If you don't, you'll be punching clocks and eating time doing precisely what you shouldn't, and you'll become mean and you'll seek to punish any and all who appear the slightest bit happy, the slightest bit comfortable in their own skin, the slightest bit smart. Cruelty is a drug, as well, and it's all around us. Don't imbibe. "Try to matter. Try to care. And never be afraid to admit that you just don't know, you just don't fucking know how you're going to make it. That's when the help--the human and the divine help--shows up." --Tennessee Williams/Interview with James Grissom/1982/

As my library of podcast interviews was growing, I realized I had more to say about the common threads and insights I had gained into how chefs think, their methodologies, and their inspirations. Combined with my own experiences in the food industry, it was clear I had a story to tell. The result is my book, Conversations Behind the Kitchen Door. Whether you’re a professional in the industry or just a dedicated food enthusiast, I’m confident you’ll enjoy reading it.

I once was the guest of the week on a British radio show called Desert Island Discs. You have to choose the eight records you would take with you if marooned on a desert island. Among my choices was Mache dich mein Herze rein from Bach’s St Matthew Passion. The interviewer was unable to understand how I could choose religious music without being religious. You might as well say, how can you enjoy Wuthering Heights when you know perfectly well that Cathy and Heathcliff never really existed? But there is an additional point that I might have made, and which needs to be made whenever religion is given credit for, say, the Sistine Chapel or Raphael’s Annunciation. Even great artists have to earn a living, and they will take commissions where they are to be had. I have no reason to doubt that Raphael and Michelangelo were Christians—it was pretty much the only option in their time—but the fact is almost incidental. Its enormous wealth had made the Church the dominant patron of the arts. If history had worked out differently, and Michelangelo had been commissioned to paint a ceiling for a giant Museum of Science, mightn’t he have produced something at least as inspirational as the Sistine Chapel? How sad that we shall never hear Beethoven’s Mesozoic Symphony, or Mozart’s opera The Expanding Universe. And what a shame that we are deprived of Haydn’s Evolution Oratorio—but that does not stop us from enjoying his Creation.

The plight (and resistance) of children living in a wholly commercialized environment that equates “entertainment” with happiness, products with status, “things” with love, and that is terrified of the free (meaning un-commodified, unpurchaseable) imagination of the young. (Although children participate enthusiastically in the “love me so buy me” pattern, I think they are taught to think that way and that on some deep level they know what is being substituted.)- Tony Morrison -Interview - (The Big Box)

There is not a day that has passed since that I do not thank Adolf Hitler for allowing me to be associated with the most talented and inspiring group of men that I have ever known.” Every member of Easy interviewed by this author for this book said something similar.

One of the first people I interviewed was Alvy Ray Smith, a charismatic Texan with a Ph.D. in computer science and a sparkling resume that included teaching stints at New York University and UC Berkeley and a gig at Xerox PARC, the distinguished R&D lab in Palo Alto. I had conflicting feelings when I met Alvy because, frankly, he seemed more qualified to lead the lab than I was. I can still remember the uneasiness in my gut, that instinctual twinge spurred by a potential threat: This, I thought, could be the guy who takes my job one day. I hired him anyway.

In his business, some customers come in and buy a suit, but what they're really buying is confidence for that job interview that's coming up. The older businessman browsing new cuff links and ties is actually looking for a way to show he's made it. The woman shopping for socks and underwear for her husband isn't there to buy socks and underwear-she's there to show her man how special he is, how much she recognizes and appreciates his uniqueness. If she wanted socks and underwear for him, she could go to any department store at the mall. The manager at this men's store realized the psychology of his particular clientele.

Can you tell us about Ama: Playing the Glass Bead Game with Pythagoras? Sunday Times Interview "Both Hesse and Tolstoy were my first spiritual gurus. Through their deep insights and soulful messages, for the first time I experienced the world of spiritual growth and deep contemplation. Many artists have inspired my writings, the likes of Leonardo da Vinci, Lao Tzu and Giordano Bruno. Pythagoras lived on the crossroads of civilisations, as I see us, and he has given us his fascinating research into music and numbers. With my deep respect towards ancient worlds, Pythagoras with his ancient Egyptian mystical knowledge had to be my protagonist.

My own circumstances may be very different from yours; you may not have an opportunity to be interviewed on television or write a book, but everyone has the opportunity to be involved with people and make a contribution to others. Even a smile of encouragement to someone who is having a bad day can make you that person's inspiration.

Rejected from a job interview, dumped by your lover, got low marks in exam, losing on every front of life... Don't you think these are most common heartbreaking moments of our life? We keep thinking that we don't have enough happiness in our life, but trust me, happiness is never enough if you keep comparing your downfall with someone's rising. Live free.

The coincidences turn up down to the smallest details. There is, for instance, a character who has covered the mirrors with handkerchiefs. Apparently this happens somewhere in Ulysses, too. And they said, Ah! This is where he got that. Where I got it was when I was in a hotel in Panama and I had washed my handkerchiefs and spread them on the windows and the mirrors to dry—they almost look pressed when they’re peeled away that way—a Panamanian friend came in and said, “All the mirrors are covered. Who’s dead? What’s happened?” I said, “No, I’m just drying my handkerchiefs.” Then I found the same incident in McTeague in what? 1903 or 1905, whenever McTeague was written. This always strikes me as dangerous—finding “sources.

Back in SEAL training, I loved when people froze up and quit. I felt it elevated me in some way, but that was ego-driven immaturity and poor leadership. These days, I consider my business to make everyone better, no matter the job or situation. During my interview with the North Peace Smokejumpers, I was asked to describe my best quality. "If you hire me," I said, "everyone in my class will graduate. [...]

People today associate rivalry with boundless aggression and find it difficult to conceive of competition that does not lead directly to thoughts of murder. Kohut writes of one of his patients: "Even as a child he had become afraid of emotionally cathected competitiveness for fear of the underlying (near delusional) fantasies of exerting absolute, sadistic power." Herbert Hendin says of the students he analyzed and interviewed at Columbia that "they could conceive of no competition that did not result in someone's annihilation." The prevalence of such fears helps to explain why Americans have become uneasy about rivalry unless it is accompanied by the disclaimer that winning and losing don't matter or that games are unimportant anyway. The identification of competition with the wish to annihilate opponents inspires Dorcas Butt's accusation that competitive sports have made us a nation of militarists, fascists, and predatory egoists; have encouraged "poor sportsmanship " in all social relations; and have extinguished cooperation and compassion.

In interviews with riders that I've read and in conversations that I've had with them, the same thing always comes up: the best part was the suffering. In Amsterdam I once trained with a Canadian rider who was living in Holland. A notorious creampuff: in the sterile art of track racing he was Canadian champion in at least six disciplines, but when it came to toughing it out on the road he didn't have the character. The sky turned black, the water in the ditch rippled, a heavy storm broke loose. The Canadian sat up straight, raised his arms to heaven and shouted: 'Rain! Soak me! Ooh, rain, soak me, make me wet!' How can that be: suffering is suffering, isn't it? In 1910, Milan—San Remo was won by a rider who spent half an hour in a mountain hut, hiding from a snowstorm. Man, did he suffer! In 1919, Brussels—Amiens was won by a rider who rode the last forty kilometers with a flat front tire. Talk about suffering! He arrived at 11.30 at night, with a ninety-minute lead on the only other two riders who finished the race. The day had been like night, trees had whipped back and forth, farmers were blown back into their barns, there were hailstones, bomb craters from the war, crossroads where the gendarmes had run away, and riders had to climb onto one another's shoulders to wipe clean the muddied road signs. Oh, to have been a rider then. Because after the finish all the suffering turns into memories of pleasure, and the greater the suffering, the greater the pleasure. That is Nature's payback to riders for the homage they pay her by suffering. Velvet pillows, safari parks, sunglasses: people have become woolly mice. They still have bodies that can walk for five days and four nights through a desert of snow, without food, but they accept praise for having taken a one-hour bicycle ride. 'Good for you.' Instead of expressing their gratitude for the rain by getting wet, people walk around with umbrellas. Nature is an old lay with few suitors these days, and those who wish to make use of her charms she rewards passionately. That's why there are riders. Suffering you need; literature is baloney.

Lawrence Otis Graham is a sprightly gossip in the Clamorgan mode: he writes largely for white magazines and is considered something of an upstart by old-line blacks. His 1999 Our Kind of People: Inside America’s Black Upper Class is a cross-country social whirl of interviews and personal anecdotes. Graham chronicles our old ways, and makes sure to certify their current value with the status symbols of integration; “exclusive” and “prestigious” schools and neighborhoods; “impeccable,” even “inspiring” professional credentials; friendships

For months beforehand, I fielded calls from British media. A couple of the reporters asked me to name some British chefs who had inspired me. I mentioned the Roux brothers, Albert and Michel, and I named Marco Pierre White, not as much for his food as for how—by virtue of becoming an apron-wearing rock-star bad boy—he had broken the mold of whom a chef could be, which was something I could relate to. I got to London to find the Lanesborough dining room packed each night, a general excitement shared by everyone involved, and incredibly posh digs from which I could step out each morning into Hyde Park and take a good long run around Buckingham Palace. On my second day, I was cooking when a phone call came into the kitchen. The executive chef answered and, with a puzzled look, handed me the receiver. Trouble at Aquavit, I figured. I put the phone up to my ear, expecting to hear Håkan’s familiar “Hej, Marcus.” Instead, there was screaming. “How the fuck can you come to my fucking city and think you are going to be able to cook without even fucking referring to me?” This went on for what seemed like five minutes; I was too stunned to hang up. “I’m going to make sure you have a fucking miserable time here. This is my city, you hear? Good luck, you fucking black bastard.” And then he hung up. I had cooked with Gordon Ramsay once, a couple of years earlier, when we did a promotion with Charlie Trotter in Chicago. There were a handful of chefs there, including Daniel Boulud and Ferran Adrià, and Gordon was rude and obnoxious to all of them. As a group we were interviewed by the Chicago newspaper; Gordon interrupted everyone who tried to answer a question, craving the limelight. I was almost embarrassed for him. So when I was giving interviews in the lead-up to the Lanesborough event, and was asked who inspired me, I thought the best way to handle it was to say nothing about him at all. Nothing good, nothing bad. I guess he was offended at being left out. To be honest, though, only one phrase in his juvenile tirade unsettled me: when he called me a black bastard. Actually, I didn’t give a fuck about the bastard part. But the black part pissed me off.

For instance, with "Ragtime" I was so desperate to write something, I was facing the wall of my study in my house in New Rochelle and so I started to write about the wall. That's the kind of day we sometimes have, as writers. Then I wrote about the house that was attached to the wall. It was built in 1906, you see, so I thought about the era and what Braodviw Avenue looked like then: trolley cars ran along the avenue down at the bottom of the hill; people wore white clothes in summer to stay cool. Teddy Roosevelt was president. One thing led to another and that's the way that book began: through desperation to those few images.... - 92nd Street YMHA Interview

The school systems, it seems to me have a attitude of discouragement of asking fundamental questions, if a 5 or 6 year old asks why the moon is round or why the grass is green? The usual adult answer, at least in my experience is to discourage the child. what color did you expect the moon to be? square? what color you expect the grass to be?blue? Instead of saying that those are interesting questions and lets try to find the answers or maybe nobody knows the answers and when you grow up you would be able to discover the answers. It would be very healthy for human species if we could have less discouragement and more scientists. – Carl Sagan(In an interview with Magnus Magnusson, 1988)

Having experimented in both poetry and prose, I can say that the two are such loaded words. But neither are quite as weighted as the word “poet”. I think some people can write poetry their whole lives, and never truly BE a “poet”. Whereas I see poets in the wanderers I encounter, the baristas who serve me, and the truckers I, so, love to talk to.To be a poet in my humble opinion is to be a muse of the human experience. I love that I love the idea, that anything can be poetry, it can’t be defined. It’s a feeling, like punk rock. I’m not one for form or structure. I say if your words are visceral and honest, it’s poetry. If you see the beauty of the world and humanity, and you preach it, you’re a poet.

All A players have six common denominators. They have a scoreboard that tells them if they are winning or losing and what needs to be done to change their performance. They will not play if they can’t see the scoreboard. They have a high internal, emotional need to succeed. They do not need to be externally motivated or begged to do their job. They want to succeed because it is who they are . . . winners. People often ask me how I motivate my employees. My response is, “I hire them.” Motivation is for amateurs. Pros never need motivating. (Inspiration is another story.) Instead of trying to design a pep talk to motivate your people, why not create a challenge for them? A players love being tested and challenged. They love to be measured and held accountable for their results. Like the straight-A classmate in your high school geometry class, an A player can hardly wait for report card day. C players dread report card day because they are reminded of how average or deficient they are. To an A player, a report card with a B or a C is devastating and a call for renewed commitment and remedial actions. They have the technical chops to do the job. This is not their first rodeo. They have been there, done that, and they are technically very good at what they do. They are humble enough to ask for coaching. The three most important questions an employee can ask are: What else can I do? Where can I get better? What do I need to do or learn so that I continue to grow? If you have someone on your team asking all three of these questions, you have an A player in the making. If you agree these three questions would fundamentally change the game for your team, why not enroll them in asking these questions? They see opportunities. C players see only problems. Every situation is asking a very simple question: Do you want me to be a problem or an opportunity? Your choice. You know the job has outgrown the person when all you hear are problems. The cost of a bad employee is never the salary. My rules for hiring and retaining A players are: Interview rigorously. (Who by Geoff Smart is a spectacular resource on this subject.) Compensate generously. Onboard effectively. Measure consistently. Coach continuously.

This guy! I plead the fifth. This guy is nuts.” - Eminem “Dope questions, man. Very insightful, very thoughtful.” - Guru (Gang Starr) “You like a Psychiatrist or some shit? This shit is just coming out but go ahead.” - Mary J. Blige “Definitely a real interview! Digging deep up in there, man. Not afraid to ask questions!” - K-Ci Hailey (Jodeci) “The Wizard asked me for a copy of your magazine.” - Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (Daft Punk) “You didn’t wear your glasses and you haven’t carried your hearing aid. What else is wrong with you?” - Bushwick Bill “Peace and blessing, Brother Harris. Thank you for inspiring my words. Keep ‘yo balance.” - Erykah Badu “Can I see that pen?” - Bobby Brown “What else do you want to know? Talk to me.” - Aaliyah

Interviewer: What helps to sustain you while you're climbing? Is there a particular Bible verse, or, song or song verse? Poem maybe? Mekael: That's a good question. Thoughts of my three sons, are my constant companions. Thoughts of them, help to keep me focused. As for other sources of inspiration....I'm a music lover. I think all Mountaineers and Poets are music lovers, so, when I'm climbing, I'm either in a Tupac zone, or I may be in a Linkin Park or Creed zone. Interviewer: Any song or verse in particular? Mekael: When during a climb, everything has aligned, Creed's 'Higher' pops into my head. I dig the part in the chorus when they sing..... 'Up high I feel like I'm, alive for the, very first time Set up high, I'm strong enough To take these dreams And make them mine

In his movie The Seventh Continent, Michael Haneke depicts a normal middle-class family who, for no apparent reason, one day quit their jobs, destroy everything in their apartment, including all the cash they have just withdrawn from the bank, and commit suicide. The story, according to Haneke, was inspired by a true story of an Austrian middle-class family who committed collective suicide. As Haneke points out in a subsequent interview, the cliché questions that people are tempted to ask when confronted with such a situation are: “did they have some trouble in their marriage?”, or “were they dissatisfied with their jobs?”. Haneke’s point, however, is to discredit such questions; if he wanted to create a Hollywood-style drama, he would have offered clues indicating some such problems that we superficially seek when trying to explain people’s choices. But his point was precisely that the most profound thoughts about whether life is meaningful occur once we have swept aside all the clichés about the pleasure or lack thereof of “love, work, and play” (Thagard), or of “being whooshed up in sports events and being absorbed in the coffee-making craft” (Dreyfus and Kelly). Psychologically, or psychotherapeutically, these are very useful ways of “finding meaning in one’s life”, but philosophically, they are rather ways of how to avoid raising the question, how to insulate oneself from the likelihood that the question of meaning will be raised to oneself. In my view, then, the particular answer to the second question (what is the meaning of life?) is not that important, because whatever answer one offers, even the nihilist or absurdist answer, is many times good enough if the purpose is to get rid of the state of puzzlement. More importantly, however, what matters is that the question itself was raised, and the question is posterior to the more fundamental one of whether there is any meaning at all in life. It is also intuitive that we could judge someone’s life as meaningless if that person has never wondered whether her life, and life in general, is meaningful or not. At the same time, our proposal is, in my opinion, neither elitist, nor parochial in any way; I find it empirically quite plausible that the vast majority of people have actually asked this question or some version of it at least once during their lives, regardless of their social class, wealth, religion, ethnicity, gender, cultural background, or historical period.

Qualities such as honesty, determination, and a cheerful acceptance of stress, which can all be identified through probing questionnaires and interviews, may be more important to the company in the long run than one's college grade-point average or years of "related experience." Every business is only as good as the people it brings into the organization. The corporate trainer should feel his job is the most important in the company, because it is. Exalt seniority-publicly, shamelessly, and with enough fanfare to raise goosebumps on the flesh of the most cynical spectator. And, after the ceremony, there should be some sort of permanent display so that employees passing by are continuously reminded of their own achievements and the achievements of others. The manager must freely share his expertise-not only about company procedures and products and services but also with regard to the supervisory skills he has worked so hard to acquire. If his attitude is, "Let them go out and get their own MBAs," the personnel under his authority will never have the full benefit of his experience. Without it, they will perform at a lower standard than is possible, jeopardizing the manager's own success. Should a CEO proclaim that there is no higher calling than being an employee of his organization? Perhaps not-for fear of being misunderstood-but it's certainly all right to think it. In fact, a CEO who does not feel this way should look for another company to manage-one that actually does contribute toward a better life for all. Every corporate leader should communicate to his workforce that its efforts are important and that employees should be very proud of what they do-for the company, for themselves, and, literally, for the world. If any employee is embarrassed to tell his friends what he does for a living, there has been a failure of leadership at his workplace. Loyalty is not demanded; it is created. Why can't a CEO put out his own suggested reading list to reinforce the corporate vision and core values? An attractive display at every employee lounge of books to be freely borrowed, or purchased, will generate interest and participation. Of course, the program has to be purely voluntary, but many employees will wish to be conversant with the material others are talking about. The books will be another point of contact between individuals, who might find themselves conversing on topics other than the weekend football games. By simply distributing the list and displaying the books prominently, the CEO will set into motion a chain of events that can greatly benefit the workplace. For a very cost-effective investment, management will have yet another way to strengthen the corporate message. The very existence of many companies hangs not on the decisions of their visionary CEOs and energetic managers but on the behavior of its receptionists, retail clerks, delivery drivers, and service personnel. The manager must put himself and his people through progressively challenging courage-building experiences. He must make these a mandatory group experience, and he must lead the way. People who have confronted the fear of public speaking, and have learned to master it, find that their new confidence manifests itself in every other facet of the professional and personal lives. Managers who hold weekly meetings in which everyone takes on progressively more difficult speaking or presentation assignments will see personalities revolutionized before their eyes. Command from a forward position, which means from the thick of it. No soldier will ever be inspired to advance into a hail of bullets by orders phoned in on the radio from the safety of a remote command post; he is inspired to follow the officer in front of him. It is much more effective to get your personnel to follow you than to push them forward from behind a desk. The more important the mission, the more important it is to be at the front.

The growth of international bureaucracies with power to determine many aspects of people’s lives is a dominant feature of our age. Even the European Union is increasingly powerless, as it merely transmits to its member states rules set at higher levels. Food standards, for example, are decided by a United Nations body called the Codex Alimentarius. The rules of the banking industry are set by a committee based in Basel in Switzerland. Financial regulation is set by the Financial Stability Board in Paris. I bet you have not heard of the World Forum for the Harmonisation of Vehicle Regulations, a subsidiary of the UN. Even the weather is to be controlled by Leviathan in the future. In an interview in 2012, Christiana Figueres, head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said she and her colleagues were inspiring government, private sector and civil society to make the biggest transformation that they have ever undertaken: ‘The Industrial Revolution was also a transformation, but it wasn’t a guided transformation from a centralized policy perspective. This is a centralized transformation.’ Yet

The bad news is, everyone looks great on paper and in interviews, but everyone also looks exactly the same. People have figured out how to present themselves as competent, qualified managers who won’t make waves and who won’t make mistakes—but nobody is able to say, “I’ve got ideas that are really new and different!” People are afraid to present themselves as innovators, and consequently innovation itself has become a lost art. This is a problem for American business. But it’s also a golden opportunity for anyone who values originality and knows how to put it to work. You can instantly set yourself apart from the crowd by focusing on what you’ll do right instead of what you won’t do wrong. To do that, you’ll need insight about your strengths and weaknesses, and intelligence about how to maximize your contribution. But most of all you’ll need inspiration—the power to create energy and excitement by what you say, how you look, and above all, what you do. Those are some of the topics we’ll be talking about in this chapter. As a first step toward making yourself unforgettable to others, consider how you see yourself in your own eyes. Image is built upon self-perception. If your self-perception is out of sync with the way you want to be perceived, you will have a hard time making a positive impression—especially if you’re not even fully aware of the problem. This happens to many people. For some reason, we tend to think less of ourselves than we’d like. We also tend to have a lower opinion of ourselves than other people have of us. It

Taking the leap is just the first step. Then you must cross the desert. And make no mistake — that journey will be hell.” “Will it be worth it?” he asked. “You tell me,” the old man responded. “How worthy is your goal? And how big is your why?” “I can’t imagine anything better,” he affirmed. “Then yes, it will be worth it. You see, everyone who stands at the edge of this cliff sees something different on the other side. What you see on the other side is your particular goal, and that is unique to you. “But there’s a reason why you have not achieved that goal yet — you are not worthy of it. You have not become who you need to become to deserve it. “As you cross the desert to your promised land, you will endure tests and trials specific to you and your goal. If you persist, those test and trials will transform you into who you need to be to be worthy of your goal. “You can’t achieve your highest, noblest goals as the same person you are today. To get from where you are to where you want to be you have to change who you are. “And that is why no one can escape that journey — it is what transforms you into a person worthy of your goal. The bad news is that that journey is hell. The good news is that you get to pick your hell.” “Pick my hell?” he asked. “What do you mean?” “Because of your natural gifts and interests, your inborn passion and purpose, there are some hells that are more tolerable to you than others. “For example, some men can endure hard physical labor because their purpose lies in such fields as construction or mechanics, while other men could not even dream of enduring that hell. “I’ve met people who knew they were born to be writers. Their desert to cross, their hell to endure was writing every day for years without being paid or being recognized and appreciated. But in spite of their hell, they were happy because they were writing. Though they still had to earn their way to the valley of their ultimate goal, they were doing what they were born to do. “Ever read the book Getting Rich Your Own Way by Scrully Blotnick?” He shook his head. “That book reveals the results on a two-decade study performed by Mr. Blotnick and his team of researchers on 1,500 people representing a cross-section of middle-class America. Throughout the study, they lost almost a third of participants due to deaths, moves, or other factors. “Of the 1,057 that remained, 83 had become millionaires. They interviewed each millionaire to identify the common threads they shared. They found five specific commonalities, including that 1) they were persistent, 2), they were patient, and 3) they were willing to handle both the ‘nobler and the pettier’ aspects of their job. “In other words, they were able to endure their particular hell because they were in the right field, they had chosen the right career that coincided with their gifts, passions, and purpose. “Here is the inescapable reality: No matter what you pick as your greatest goal, achieving it will stretch you in ways you can’t imagine right now. You will have to get out of your comfort zone. You will have to become a different person than you are right now to become worthy of your goal. You must cross that hellacious desert to get to your awe-inspiring goal. “But I get to pick my hell?” he asked. “You get to pick your hell.

After we finished the interview Paul thanked me for my time and told me he thought I was great on the radio. He suggested I think about it as a career. I thanked him and said I’d consider it. But really all I was thinking about was Jamie. As soon as I got in my car I looked on my phone and saw I had a Facebook friend request from her. I felt schoolgirl giddy. I accepted the request and immediately called my Army buddy Max. Max is one of the guys who came with me on that first Tough Mudder. We are really close friends, and he’s someone I’ve always confided in. Just a few weeks before I had called and told him, “You know what? I’m done with women for the time being, but the next time I talk to a girl, I’m shooting out of my league.” So now I called Max and said, “I’ve met a girl way out of my league and I’m gonna take a shot.” I wasn’t good at asking women out and felt really nervous. I told Max she had sent me a friend request and he urged me to send her a private message on Facebook. I typed out a pretty long message and hit SEND. Then I finally put the keys in the ignition and left the radio station parking lot. Every red light I hit, I checked my phone to see if she had responded. She hadn’t. Why wasn’t she responding? Finally, I pulled over and looked again. The message hadn’t gone through! I panicked and called Max back. “What am I gonna do? What if I send another one and the first one is just floating through the Internet and it eventually goes through? Do I send another one? Do I make it sound exactly the same? I’m gonna look like a crazy person! What do I do? I don’t know what to do!” Max calmed me down again and I rewrote my original message. This time she responded. “Jamie, it was great meeting you and Paul today. Sorry you got stuck with a used bracelet. If I run into you again I will hook you up with a new one. You’ll just have to give that one back. They aren’t free. LOL. Take care.” She responded: “Ha ha. Actually, Noah Galloway, I got the one I wanted ;). Great to meet you, too. Love your story. Tragedy to triumph. I can’t imagine the number of people you inspire every day. Hope to run into you sooner rather than later.

It was 1996, and the word “appropriation” never occurred to either of them. They were drawn to these references because they loved them, and they found them inspiring. They weren’t trying to steal from another culture, though that is probably what they did. Consider Mazer in a 2017 interview with Kotaku, celebrating the twentieth-anniversary Nintendo Switch port of the original Ichigo: kotaku: It is said that the original Ichigo is one of the most graphically beautiful low-budget games ever made, but its critics also accuse it of appropriation. How do you respond to that? mazer: I do not respond to that. kotaku: Okay…But would you make the same game if you were making it now? mazer: No, because I am a different person than I was then. kotaku: In terms of its obvious Japanese references, I mean. Ichigo looks like a character Yoshitomo Nara could have painted. The world design looks like Hokusai, except for the Undead level, which looks like Murakami. The soundtrack sounds like Toshiro Mayuzumi… mazer: I won’t apologize for the game Sadie and I made. [Long pause.] We had many references—Dickens, Shakespeare, Homer, the Bible, Philip Glass, Chuck Close, Escher. [Another long pause.] And what is the alternative to appropriation? kotaku: I don’t know. mazer: The alternative to appropriation is a world in which artists only reference their own cultures. kotaku: That’s an oversimplification of the issue. mazer: The alternative to appropriation is a world where white European people make art about white European people, with only white European references in it. Swap African or Asian or Latin or whatever culture you want for European. A world where everyone is blind and deaf to any culture or experience that is not their own. I hate that world, don’t you? I’m terrified of that world, and I don’t want to live in that world, and as a mixed-race person, I literally don’t exist in it. My dad, who I barely knew, was Jewish. My mom was an American-born Korean. I was raised by Korean immigrant grandparents in Koreatown, Los Angeles. And as any mixed-race person will tell you—to be half of two things is to be whole of nothing. And, by the way, I don’t own or have a particularly rich understanding of the references of Jewishness or Koreanness because I happen to be those things. But if Ichigo had been fucking Korean, it wouldn’t be a problem for you, I guess?

The story of Cassius Clay’s lost bicycle would later be told as an indication of the boxer’s determination and the wonders of accidental encounters, but it carries broader meaning, too. If Cassius Clay had been a white boy, the theft of his bicycle and an introduction to Joe Martin might have led as easily to an interest in a career in law enforcement as boxing. But Cassius, who had already developed a keen understanding of America’s racial striation, knew that law enforcement wasn’t a promising option. This subject—what white America allowed and expected of black people—would intrigue him all his life. “At twelve years old I wanted to be a big celebrity,” he said years later. “I wanted to be world famous.” The interviewer pushed him: Why did he want to be famous? Upon reflection he answered from a more adult perspective: “So that I could rebel and be different from all the rest of them and show everyone behind me that you don’t have to Uncle Tom, you don’t have to kiss you-know-what to make it . . . I wanted to be free. I wanted to say what I wanna say . . . Go where I wanna go. Do what I wanna do.” For young Cassius, what mattered was that boxing was permitted, even encouraged, and that it gave him more or less equal status to the white boys who trained with him. Every day, on his way to the gym, Cassius passed a Cadillac dealership. Boxing wasn’t the only way for him to acquire one of those big, beautiful cars in the showroom window, but it might have seemed that way at the time. Boxing suggested a path to prosperity that did not require reading and writing. It came with the authorization of a white man in Joe Martin. It offered respect, visibility, power, and money. Boxing transcended race in ways that were highly unusual in the 1950s, when black Americans had limited control of their economic and political lives. Boxing more than most other sports allowed black athletes to compete on level ground with white athletes, to openly display their strength and even superiority, and to earn money on a relatively equal scale. As James Baldwin wrote in The Fire Next Time, many black people of Clay’s generation believed that getting an education and saving money would never be enough to earn respect. “One needed a handle, a lever, a means of inspiring fear,” Baldwin wrote. “It was absolutely clear the police would whip you and take you in as long as they could get away with it, and that everyone else—housewives, taxi

If TiVo had interviewed customers about how they program their VCRs, they might have gotten feedback that drove them to simplify the programming controls and missed the boat on creating the digital video recording industry. In fact, that’s exactly what the first attempts at improving the VCR looked like.[30] Compare that to asking customers about the time they missed the last 10 minutes of the final episode of Twin Peaks or the game-winning play in the Super Bowl — it’s easy to imagine how quickly (and emphatically) customers would’ve told you about the problems that inspired pausing live TV, recording by show name instead of time slot, and fast-forwarding through commercials.

Ill at ease around most people, she had an unusually intense connection with animals—particularly cats, but also snails, which she bred at home. Highsmith was inspired to keep the gastropods as pets when she saw a pair at a fish market locked in a strange embrace. (She later told a radio interviewer that “they give me a sort of tranquility.”) She eventually housed three hundred snails in her garden in Suffolk, England, and once arrived at a London cocktail party carrying a gigantic handbag that contained a head of lettuce and a hundred snails—her companions for the evening, she said. When she later moved to France, Highsmith had to get around the prohibition against bringing live snails into the country. So she smuggled them in, making multiple trips across the border with six to ten of the creatures hidden under each breast.

In a way our job is not so much to inspire the scientist in kids, but rather to allow it to grow on its natural trajectory. We typically don’t do that by virtue of the way we teach science in schools and the cultural attitude toward science. That can and will shift.

Inherent in the artist's creative inspiration is the process of subliminally sniffing out environmental change," observed McLuhan in a 1969 interview. "It's always been the artist who perceives the alterations in man caused by a new medium, who recognizes that the future is the present, and uses his work to prepare the ground for it."70

The history of food is inseparable from the history of movement.

Who gets more exercise, you on the gurney or the people pushing you?

What happened to the troubled young reporter who almost brought this magazine down The last time I talked to Stephen Glass, he was pleading with me on the phone to protect him from Charles Lane. Chuck, as we called him, was the editor of The New Republic and Steve was my colleague and very good friend, maybe something like a little brother, though we are only two years apart in age. Steve had a way of inspiring loyalty, not jealousy, in his fellow young writers, which was remarkable given how spectacularly successful he’d been in such a short time. While the rest of us were still scratching our way out of the intern pit, he was becoming a franchise, turning out bizarre and amazing stories week after week for The New Republic, Harper’s, and Rolling Stone— each one a home run. I didn’t know when he called me that he’d made up nearly all of the bizarre and amazing stories, that he was the perpetrator of probably the most elaborate fraud in journalistic history, that he would soon become famous on a whole new scale. I didn’t even know he had a dark side. It was the spring of 1998 and he was still just my hapless friend Steve, who padded into my office ten times a day in white socks and was more interested in alphabetizing beer than drinking it. When he called, I was in New York and I said I would come back to D.C. right away. I probably said something about Chuck like: “Fuck him. He can’t fire you. He can’t possibly think you would do that.” I was wrong, and Chuck, ever-resistant to Steve’s charms, was as right as he’d been in his life. The story was front-page news all over the world. The staff (me included) spent several weeks re-reporting all of Steve’s articles. It turned out that Steve had been making up characters, scenes, events, whole stories from first word to last. He made up some funny stuff—a convention of Monica Lewinsky memorabilia—and also some really awful stuff: racist cab drivers, sexist Republicans, desperate poor people calling in to a psychic hotline, career-damaging quotes about politicians. In fact, we eventually figured out that very few of his stories were completely true. Not only that, but he went to extreme lengths to hide his fabrications, filling notebooks with fake interview notes and creating fake business cards and fake voicemails. (Remember, this was before most people used Google. Plus, Steve had been the head of The New Republic ’s fact-checking department.) Once we knew what he’d done, I tried to call Steve, but he never called back. He just went missing, like the kids on the milk cartons. It was weird. People often ask me if I felt “betrayed,” but really I was deeply unsettled, like I’d woken up in the wrong room. I wondered whether Steve had lied to me about personal things, too. I wondered how, even after he’d been caught, he could bring himself to recruit me to defend him, knowing I’d be risking my job to do so. I wondered how I could spend more time with a person during the week than I spent with my husband and not suspect a thing. (And I didn’t. It came as a total surprise). And I wondered what else I didn’t know about people. Could my brother be a drug addict? Did my best friend actually hate me? Jon Chait, now a political writer for New York and back then the smart young wonk in our trio, was in Paris when the scandal broke. Overnight, Steve went from “being one of my best friends to someone I read about in The International Herald Tribune, ” Chait recalled. The transition was so abrupt that, for months, Jon dreamed that he’d run into him or that Steve wanted to talk to him. Then, after a while, the dreams stopped. The Monica Lewinsky scandal petered out, George W. Bush became president, we all got cell phones, laptops, spouses, children. Over the years, Steve Glass got mixed up in our minds with the fictionalized Stephen Glass from his own 2003 roman à clef, The Fabulist, or Steve Glass as played by Hayden Christiansen in the 2003

The marsh toads interviewed the eagle ‘How come you venture so high? Aren’t you scared you’ll hit the ceiling That blue metal dome they call the sky?’ The eagle knew these earth-bound creatures Were ignorant of boundless space And couldn’t conceive of infinities Not being born to the wind’s embrace.” From Bachchoo’s Fables

recruiters wooed interesting candidates they had spotted with a cloak-and-dagger shtick. They would hand out blank envelopes that contained invitations to meet at a specific time and place, usually a bar or restaurant near the event, for an initial interview. The candidates that showed up would discover they were among only a handful of people who been anointed out of all the conference attendees. They were immediately made to feel special and inspired. Like many

***What reasons made you to found the Dragon Rouge? When the idea to found it for the first time in your head appeared?*** It was several reasons, and its a long story so I can’t tell the whole story here, but three reasons were most important: 1) it was a need for a new practical oriented order, 2) it was a need for a new order working with the LHP, Draconian Current and Nightside Tradition, 3) I got the impulse from older draconian magicians both in Sweden and Marocco to found a new magical order based upon a practical oriented version of the LHP, Draconian Current and the Nightside Tradition. ***I`m not sure do I remember well, but somone told this was not your idea, but it was the decision of the secret association derived from Yezidian and Tyfonic traditions? Is it true? Can you say something about that association?*** Yes, you are right. As I said above I got the idea from a secret group of Swedish magicians. I got a lot of magical texts from them and their work was partly based upon the typhonian tradition and there interpretation of yezidism. They claimed that their founder was inititated in a yezidi circle in Kurdistan. Much of their concept reminds me of what you find in the writings of Kenneth Grant and I think they were inspired by him, although they made a lot of new interpretations and inventions. I also recieved small but important magical things on a journey to Marocco in the days when Dragon Rouge was about to be founded, and one of our earliest members was a pupil to a american magician who gave us a lot of unique material about LHP Egyptian magic and dark Egyptian deities. interview - Therion.Metal.Pl and for e-zine Rock4eveR both on 16th of September 2003.