A Quote by Neal Stephenson
Interesting things happen along borders - transitions - not in the middle where everything is the same.
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One of the greatest things that could really happen to Africa is for us to get rid of the borders and for the leadership not to think that the countries belong to them... We didn't create the borders to start with.
I have always felt that the action most worth watching is not at the center of things but where edges meet. I like shorelines, weather fronts, international borders. There are interesting frictions and incongruities in these places, and often, if you stand at the point of tangency, you can see both sides better than if you were in the middle of either one.
Our borders have got to be secured. You know, when President Reagan, who was one of my idols, granted amnesty to about three million illegal immigrants, it was based on the fact that the borders would be secured. That didn't happen. It didn't happen during the Bush administration.
In 'Saving Mr. Banks,' the challenge was just transitions. Time transitions from 1961 to 1906; how do you follow a character in one environment to another? And sometimes these transitions were quick, so how do you do that?
Things happen. And good things happen, and bad things happen. And I'm a person - I'm a believer that everything happens for a reason.
Things can happen in some cities and the tale of them will be interesting: the same story laid in another city would be ridiculous.
You think it will never happen to you, that it cannot happen to you, that you are the only person in the world to whom none of these things will ever happen, and then, one by one, they all begin to happen to you, in the same way they happen to everyone else.
I have always argued, in a good novel, interesting things happen to interesting people.
What I collect? Interesting jobs. Always to my thrill and excitement, but ultimately to my exhaustion, I collect interesting jobs. If an interesting job comes along, I take it; that's why I do so many things. I'm lucky to be able to.
Out there things can happen, and frequently do, To people as brainy and footsy as you. And when things start to happen, don't worry, don't stew. Just go right along, you'll start happening too!
There is always some universal proportion, but along with that there are some places where special things happen. Ireland, for example. I've always felt it's interesting to play there. Maybe they just drink more than anybody else.
I want you to remember who you are, despite the bad things that are happening to you. Because those bad things aren't you. They are just things that happen to you. You need to accept that who you are and the things that happen you, are not one and the same.
I think it's an interesting thing to me, because we have this desire for everything to be explained to us. But if you go through your daily actions, very little ends up having a written-down explanation for why things happen, or why people do specific things.
I think most of my approach to life has been like that, to find order in chaos, to be in the middle of a bunch of things happening at the same time, but find focus. I strive to be like the sun sitting in the middle of the solar system with all the planets spinning around it - millions of things going on. It's just sitting there being the sun, but exerting gravitational effect on everything. I think man should look at himself that way.
When I was working with Talking Heads what would happen typically is that they would go out and start playing a track, and I would always run the tape. I always record everything, even a run through where you're trying to get in tune. That's a principle because sometimes when the situation isn't clear interesting things happen, and they are worth listening to again.
One of my core beliefs is that everything happens for a reason and some things just aren't to my taste. All the things that happen in my life are divinely inspired and they happen for a purpose.
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