I've always loved the old epics that tell a simple emotional story whether it's the tumultuous relationship between Rhett and Scarlett or Lawrence of Arabia's passion to get lost in a faraway place.

I think that to a very great extent we are partners with the divine in this enterprise called history. That is an ongoing relationship and there is absolutely no guarantee that things will automatically work out to our best advantage.

And one thing that I always believed and that I knew for certain was that I could never have sustained a personal relationship while I worked this hard or while I was that driven this intensely by the story.

It's a luxury to be able to tell a long form story. I love novels and I love to have a long relationship with characters.

You know we're each the hero of our own story and we perceive what's going on around us and especially in a relationship from the kind of viewpoint of 'Well this is my story and I'm the hero of that and I justify what I do around it.'

Mine is just a simple old human story - of one person trying with great rigor and discipline to comprehend her personal relationship with divinity.

The decision to kiss for the first time is the most crucial in any love story. It changes the relationship of two people much more strongly than even the final surrender because this kiss already has within it that surrender.

Lessons of wisdom have the most power over us when they capture the heart through the groundwork of a story which engages the passions.

We believe that it is very important that we have hopefully averted what would have been the most substantial headwind of all which is a default for the first time in our history and that that will contribute to a more positive environment that we hope will allow for greater growth and job creation.

In the annals of history few men have left a more positive imprint on the world than Pope John Paul II.

I think the rise of China is one of the great events of all economic and human history and I think this will be overwhelmingly a positive thing for the region and the world.

However I must say that I am very happy to see that we have such a positive result for our first referendum in our history and that gives me more confidence in Taiwan's democracy.

I want people to use Perl. I want to be a positive ingredient of the world and make my American history. So whatever it takes to give away my software and get it used that's great.

When people ask me about my story I just go through the positive stuff: the tent-pole moments the big landmark checkpoints.

I was totally absorbed in the real world the politics the history the news and I just couldn't find my way into the fictional world... When I finally could return to writing the novel it was in fits and starts.

Rush Limbaugh we expect nonsense from him. But the Vatican that's another story. When the Vatican is so threatened that it launches attacks on nuns well you know what they say in politics a hit dog hollers.

But poetry is a way of language it is not its subject or its maker's background or interests or hobbies or fixations. It is nearer to utterance than history.

I believe that the short story is as different a form from the novel as poetry is and the best stories seem to me to be perhaps closer in spirit to poetry than to novels.

I think that great poetry is the most interesting and complex use of the poet's language at that point in history and so it's even more exciting when you read a poet like Yeats almost 100 years old now and you think that perhaps no one can really top that.

Rap is rhythm and poetry. Hip-hop is storytelling and poetry as well.

I had art as a major along with English French and History. I had dance modern dance. In English I was allowed to write my own poetry which I eventually got published.

I think we fool ourselves and really negate a great deal of history if we think that the oral history of poetry is shorter than the written history of poetry. It's not true. Poetry has a longer oral tradition than it does written.

Even if you only want to write science fiction you should also read mysteries poetry mainstream literature history biography philosophy and science.

Cut quarrels out of literature and you will have very little history or drama or fiction or epic poetry left.