Quotes About Experience

Certainly I'm still mining my experiences as a journalist. I think it's no coincidence that all three of my novels basically are about how people act in a time of catastrophe. Do they go to their best self or their worst self?

I have no desire to write historical anything or futuristic anything - I want to find a way to get at the essence of what it's like to be alive now. The reason why great novels from centuries ago are still great is because that's what they were doing; it's like a message from another culture.

Some critics said, 'Hey, why are you writing historical novels?' I say they're not historical, they're contemporary, because people walking around who lived through this, even a little bit, they carry it inside. The contemporary isn't just what you can see now.

My second, third and fourth novels were mistakes, essentially.

I feel like I don't understand time in novels, really. I bumble forward, is all.

I like to drive nice cars; since I live in New York, and I don't drive there, it's a novelty to be on the road and drive and listen to my music.

For most Americans, my Chinese music feels like a novelty, and it's not what it is for me.

They did cast me as an ingenue once, and the novelty was nice. But I said, 'There is nothing here to play!' I really like getting into the meat of a role.

A lot of why I do something is just the novelty of the experience.

I've always said that the games in November are the ones you remember.

I consider myself a novice film actor.

I do enjoy filming, but I do consider myself still to be a bit of a novice, and I learn a bit every time I do a film job, and I am very admiring of film actors.

It doesn't matter if I have experienced actors alongside or novices. It doesn't matter if the director is one film old or a hundred. All I'm interested in is doing justice to the role.

The very first film, documentary that I made, was called 'The First Year.' It was 11 years ago and I followed these five novice teachers. I was actually with them on their first day of school and followed them for their first year.

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

I really, really loved making 'This Is My Life' and 'Now and Then.'

I've been married three times. I married the girl next door when I was 22, and I wasn't a good husband, but I wasn't a good anything then. Nowadays, I'm much kinder.

I mean ESPN plucked me out of nowhere and I'm forever grateful for the opportunity. I don't love the way it ended. But I'm not a grudge-holder.

An aircraft cabin is a place that seems to be nowhere, but I find it steeped in the place left behind and the place ahead.

I've seen a fair bit of the States and the rest of the world, and I'm convinced that there's nowhere I'd be happier, there's nowhere I'm missing out on because I'm in N.Y.

I don't think that bands that make it on their first album are as strong as bands that don't: there is nowhere to go but down.

I'm still very much in the apprentice stage of writing. I read somewhere that you need to write a million words before you know what you're doing - so I'm headed that way, but I'm nowhere near there.

It's nowhere near as intense as what I imagine an actor experiences backstage, but I feel a fluttering nervousness before a curtain goes up on a play. I mean, any play, anywhere - on Broadway or the Bowery or in a church basement.

When I drive into Augusta and down Magnolia Lane, there's just a spirit and nostalgia about it that you experience nowhere else. Why? Because it's the same place every year.