My attitude to writing is like when you do wallpapering, you remember where all the little bits are that don't meet. And then your friends say: It's terrific!

I am definitely a Type A personality, always rushing around, trying to do too much, not good at just lying on the beach. But I'm so thankful for everything I have: wonderfully supportive parents and sisters, the best husband in the world, terrific students I love teaching and hanging out with, and above all, my two amazing daughters.

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.

Scared and sacred are spelled with the same letters. Awful proceeds from the same root word as awesome. Terrify and terrific. Every negative experience holds the seed of transformation.

Shoot for the moon- and if you don't get what you want, you'll still be among the stars. By making big plans and working for them, you change. You become somebody else. So even if you fail and don't get what you planned, you're somebody else. You'll say, "That's ok, I'll go do this other terrific thing.

Terrific. A bisexual dominant vampire with kidnapping expertise.

The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and they're pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody's be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you'd be so much older or anything. It wouldn't be that, exactly. You'd just be different, that's all. You'd have an overcoat this time. Or the kid that was your partner in line the last time had got scarlet fever and you'd have a new partner. Or you'd have a substitute taking the class, instead of Miss Aigletinger. Or you'd heard your mother and father having a terrific fight in the bathroom. Or you'd just passed by one of those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them. I mean you'd be different in some way-I can't explain what I mean. And even if I could, I'm not sure I'd feel like it.

I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible.

While there have been terrific advances in the state of technology around heuristics behavior blocking and things like that technology is only a part of the approach to solving the problem with the more important aspect involving putting the right process in place.

Experience is a good teacher but she sends in terrific bills.

I think Bob Costas is terrific. He's so knowledgeable. He can talk about any subject not just sports.

Gorillas are in danger of being wiped out by the Ebola virus. I feel like we have limited time to get to know them and understand them and they're going to disappear - that's terrifically sad. Wouldn't it be great if we could stop that?

I had to satisfy the action fans the romantic fans the intellectual fans. It was a terrific burden.

The power of an air force is terrific when there is nothing to oppose it.

I've had two terrific relationships but both ended in marriage.

I love John Irving's stuff. It's that marriage of comedy and tragedy. It's really terrific.

For 'So Cold the River ' I'm actually working on adapting the book with Scott Silver who was just nominated for an Oscar for 'The Fighter ' and who also wrote '8 Mile ' which I think is a terrific screenplay. The chance to work with Scott is a tremendous pleasure and I'm learning a lot.

Roosevelt was the one who had the vision to change our policy from isolationism to world leadership. That was a terrific revolution. Our country's never been the same since.

People forget how outcast 'They Might Be Giants' can be. They have a reputation for writing really deft funny clever melodies and they also make a lot of music for kids which is terrific but when you see them in concert they can rock the house.

Ray Bradbury is for many reasons the most influential writer in my life. Throughout our long friendship Ray supplied not only his terrific stories but a grand model of what a writer could be should be and yet rarely is: brilliant and charming and accessible willing to tolerate and to teach happy to inspire but also to be inspired.

Did you ever see the customers in health - food stores? They are pale skinny people who look half - dead. In a steak house you see robust ruddy people. They're dying of course but they look terrific.

Don't get me wrong I think bikes are terrific. I own several of my own including a trendy mountain style and ride them for pleasure and light exercise.

There's enormous progressive activism and more often than not success at the grassroots level - everything from living wage campaigns to efforts to finance our elections are having terrific success.

During the decades after Brown v. Board of Education there was terrific progress. Tens of thousands of public schools were integrated racially. During that time the gap between black and white achievement narrowed.