A Quote by Marv Levy

I'm about 75 pages into a book on poetry. I don't know if anybody wants to read it. It's on any broad variety of subjects. I walk down the street and think of a topic and jot it down and say, 'Okay, that's another one.' They go from the humorous to the serious to every topic imaginable.
Who is the best rapper ever? I'll probably have to say Eminem. I would definitely say Eminem. He came from a whole another culture, literally. Mastered it, outsold everybody and he did every kind of record imaginable. He could take any topic and make a song out of it. I haven't seen any artist do that yet.
It's funny, our beauty standard has become harder and tougher because we live in a tough age. I don't think anyone wants to walk down the street and feel vulnerable. You want to walk down the street and feel like you're in control.
After preliminary research, I zero in on an idea, and then I spend at least four months exploring the topic and in plot-building. I jot down every single detail of the plot as bullet points per chapter, and only when the skeleton is complete do I start writing.
I don't know the history of hating communism in America. I've always been interested in it, and I've thought about studying it in the past, but I've just looked into other topics first. That certainly sounds like a good topic that we could do on the show. I think it would be really interesting. We would just need to spend a lot of time researching it, getting into it, running down that topic. So I'll take that as a really good pitch for a future episode.
I think all of the best nonfiction that has ever been made comes from the result of someone who can't stop thinking about a certain topic - a very specific aspect of a certain topic in some cases. And second, they got really good at figuring out what they had to say about it.
I recommend anybody go to a bookstore, go down the self-help or new-age section, and just walk those aisles. See what book jumps out at you; there's a good chance it's a book you need in your life. That's basically how I find the books that I read.
It's more fun to have a name rather than a number. I think this gives our products a personality. I get the names from literature, movies, opera, traveling, nature, poetry, sometimes even the street. I keep a small book that I write in. I wake up in the middle of the night and jot down a name for a lipstick or an eyeshadow.
I don't think that my art isn't serious. I think the subjects are not serious, or my treatments of the subjects are not serious. But then, I'm also putting down subject, because like the abstract expressionists, I don't think the subject is important.
Poetry is the most informative of all of the arts because everything comes down to poetry. No matter what it is we are describing, ultimately we use either a metaphor; or we say "that's poetry in motion." You drink a glass of wine and say, "that's poetry in a bottle." Everything is poetry, so I think we come down to emotional information. And that's what poetry conveys.
I've always said that Watership Down is not a book for children. I say: it's a book, and anyone who wants to read it can read it.
As an editorial cartoonist now, I live for those moments of inspiration, and it is exhilarating to be inspired by a topic, have an opinion on the topic, come up with a good cartoon on the topic, and to draw it and get it in the paper the next day. That is what I live for.
I'm glad to know that I can host the 'Today' show for 16 years and not be a trending topic. And all the sudden I'm on 'Royal Pains,' and I'm a trending topic. There's something a little strange about that.
A cardinal rule of writing is never interrupt yourself to explain something. If you must bring up an obscure topic, drop informative hints about it as you go along so that you don't end up with the entire explanation all in one place. This keeps you from skidding to a stop and sounding teacherish. Otherwise it's better to omit the obscure topic altogether, or as mothers might put it: if you can't say it interestingly, don't say it at all.
There is almost no topic that can't benefit from being talked about in a humorous way.
There is a hideous invention called the Dewey Decimal System. And you have to look up your topic in books and newspapers. Pages upon pages upon pages…” Uncle Will frowned. “Didn’t they teach you how to go about research in that school of yours?” “No. But I can recite ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ while making martinis.” “I weep for the future.” “There’s where the martinis come in.
I can walk into a bookshop and point out a number of books that I find very unattractive in what they say. But it doesn't occur to me to burn the bookshop down. If you don't like a book, read another book. If you start reading a book and you decide you don't like it, nobody is telling you to finish it.
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