When I graduated college I had a series of just humiliating jobs that I couldn't believe I was at.

If a student takes the whole series of my folklore courses including the graduate seminars, he or she should learn something about fieldwork, something about bibliography, something about how to carry out library research, and something about how to publish that research.

A mountain is composed of tiny grains of earth. The ocean is made up of tiny drops of water. Even so, life is but an endless series of little details, actions, speeches, and thoughts. And the consequences whether good or bad of even the least of them are far-reaching.

God wants us to know that life is a series of beginnings, not endings. Just as graduations are not terminations, but commencements. Creation is an ongoing process, and when we create a perfect world where love and compassion are shared by all, suffering will cease.

I believe life is a series of near misses. A lot of what we ascribe to luck is not luck at all. It's seizing the day and accepting responsibility for your future. It's seeing what other people don't see And pursuing that vision.

Life is a series of collisions with the future; it is not the sum of what we have been, but what we yearn to be.

There are some good space battles in some of the later series, but that wasn't why you were tuning in every week. You were tuning in every week because Spock was a fascinating character. Because his friendship with Kirk was profound and really unusual.

We want 'Doll & Em' to be something we're proud of. We'd love to do another series, but it's not the be-all and end-all. Our friendship is the be-all and end-all.

In 1962, I wrote a series about 42nd Street called 'Welcome to Lostville.' One result was that the young Bob Dylan read it and invited me to his first concert at Town Hall; the result was a kind of friendship that years later led to my liner notes for 'Blood on the Tracks.'

I'm calling my book series the 'with God series.' And this next 'with God' book is Friendship with God, which comes out in November. This books challenges us to bring about the end of 'better' on this planet.

Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?

My theme is, 'The spirit of friendship is the balance of life.' Not money. Not the World Series. It's friendship. The relationships I have with people, that's enough to keep me happy.

Our culture is just a series of checks and balances. The whole idea that we're in a battle between tyranny and freedom - it's a series of pendulum swings.

There are a lot of food choices in Kyochon, but I personally recommend the double fried chicken and the Soonsal series - deep-fried, boneless chicken breast strips coated in a special rice batter.

I taped my first series for PBS in 1982 at WJCT-TV in Jacksonville, Florida. The show, called 'Everyday Cooking with Jacques Pepin,' was about saving time and money in the kitchen - and it was a celebration of simple and unpretentious food.

In other fitness pursuits, you may have learned to go through the motions first and perfect your form second. In Pilates, it's the other way around. You learn to control your abs first and then proceed through a series of more progressive movements. At all times, you should feel in control of your body.

I'm not ashamed to admit that for many years, most of my fitness information came from a VHS series by MTV called ''The Grind Workout.''

I've interviewed presidents and royalty, rock stars and movie stars, famous generals and captains of industry; I've had front row seats at Super Bowls, World Series, and Olympic Games; my books have been on best-seller lists, and my marriage is a long-running success.

I loved cowboy films and TV series, and I learned bits of English from them. My favorite was 'Laramie', with Robert Fuller and John Smith. I used to watch 'The Lone Ranger', which had been famous in Japan as well. I idolized these cowboys.

As the eldest son of an Alabama sharecropper family, I was constantly troubled by a collage of North American southern behaviors and notions in reference to the inhumanity of people. There were questions that I did not know how to ask but could, in my young, unsophisticated way, articulate a series of answers.

My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another. Like lily pads, round and green, these places summoned and then held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land, and in this way I moved across the swamp of doubt and fear.

If faith in ourselves had been more extensively taught and practiced, I am sure a very large portion of the evils and miseries that we have would have vanished.

'Rise' is a fun web series but one that tackles the practical realities of our lives. It is a story that most of us experience in some or the other form, and that is what got me excited about the story.

Life it is not just a series of calculations and a sum total of statistics, it's about experience, it's about participation, it is something more complex and more interesting than what is obvious.