When a woman gets dressed up to go out at night, she wants to give 50% away, and hold the rest back. If you're an open book, there's no allure.
I can understand the allure of a venerable Big Six imprint, of a shot at the New York Times list, of a publisher-sponsored book tour, of seeing your hardbacks in bookstores and your paperbacks in supermarkets.
I suppose the desire to go to town helped make me ambitious, and the allure of the worlds that came in over the radio also helped. But the rewards of growing up on a farm were far greater in many ways than life in town.
Down with politics and the art of the possible; up with pronouncements and the allure of the prophetic: It's the way of demagogues everywhere.
I like hearing the sort of harmonies people get into in different parts of the world. I love music that has a sense of allure to it, and exotic tunes. That's what I'm drawn to.
If you are an investor, I hope that you will stay with me for three, four, ten years. But if you ask me to make profits in ways that I have to change my allure, I won't do that. I won't lose my identity.
These are big trade-offs for a simple piece of cake - add five hundred calories, subtract well-being, allure, and self-esteem - and the feelings behind them are anything but vain or shallow.
There are some really interesting celebrities and people who are fun to interview, but when you have to do it every day because you have to fill a slot, the allure wears off.