I am Michael, and I am part English, Irish, German, and Scottish, sort of a virtual United Nations.
Love is the water of life, drink deeply.
I wanted to be a librarian from a very young age. Some of my earliest memories are being taken to the local library. I ended up working as a bookseller. Becoming a writer was the logical offshoot of being a reader.
People get caught up in asking whether Americans should be going here or there. What it boils down to is the call of the Lord. If the Lord has called you to a specific area, that’s where you are going to see the fruit.
It’s always been Apple’s goal to ship something we were proud of and something people would be proud to own, and I think that’s still true from thirty years ago.
Don’t ever, for any reason, do anything to anyone, for any reason, ever, no matter what.
It’s never too early for ice cream.
Making sure that the geography and timelines work is always the hardest part of writing. But you owe it to the readers to get it right!
Negotiations are about controlling things, about being in the driver’s seat. Make one tiny mistake and you’re dead. I made one tiny mistake, I wore women’s clothes.
A good story is always a journey. It is about taking the journey, the people the hero meets along the way and how they change him or her. All stories are journeys. They don’t have to be shocking or outrageous: they simply have to be interesting.
And in their rush to create wonders, they have ignored the wonders all around them, ignored the mysteries, the beauty.
Just as a pebble thrown into the water creates ripples, so our thoughts create similar effects on our palms.
This year, more people will use cocaine than will read a book to their children.
I never base characters on real people – you can get into so much trouble that way!
What the guys have learned is that whether you’re preaching to one or 10,000, it really doesn’t matter. That one person you touch may change the nation – could be the Billy Graham of Ethiopia.
The research. It is always the best part of writing. And, of course, it is the great excuse to travel.
I have a huge music library and deliberately choose the piece of music to match the piece I’m writing. So, every book I write has its own “soundtrack.”
I am a great believer that all the primary research has to be done before principle writing begins. I’m a huge advocate of plotting.
The reality is the park has been badly maintained for years.
I think the writing and the casting and all of that has so much to do with actors becoming their characters. I think if an actor is right for a role, casting sees that and the words that are on the page, depending on how it’s written, can really help your character develop.
I can’t imagine myself not being an actor.