If we mean to have heroes, statesmen and philosophers, we should have learned women.
There are too many politicians in the world and too few statesmen.
During one of the Apollo missions, I saw Walter Cronkite showing off the flight plan. It just mesmerized me. All this detail! That's what I wanted.
I like sugar, be it candy, this season's pumpkin chocolate chip bars, or wine. Sugar is bad for me. It just sits on my tummy, causing my middle child Esme to ask if we are having a fourth baby. Rude!
Dustin Hoffman was the greatest. He had so much information to give and he mesmerized me. He really feels for actors who are just starting out and remembers his early days like they were yesterday.
Watching television in those days was not the same experience as it is today. After years of listening to radio, we found the black-and-white images mesmerizing.
The statesmen still say that we should not interfere in the internal affairs of other nations and yet it is not possible any longer not to interfere, even when we do not mean to do so.
For if the Germans do not help defend the West, American and Canadian troops must cross the seas to do the job, and I venture to believe that the troops - if not the statesmen - regard this as an interference at least in their own domestic affairs.
Moreover, war has become a thing potentially so terrible and destructive that it should have been the common aim of statesmen to put an end to it forever.
In plotting a book, my goal is to raise the stakes for the characters and, in so doing, keep the reader mesmerized.
