My father discovered that our family had made long-case clocks in Warwickshire in the early 18th century. He managed to track down a fine example through an English antiquarian and horologist and gifted it to me for my 30th birthday.
Nothing is harmful to literature except censorship, and that almost never stops literature going where it wants to go either, because literature has a way of surpassing everything that blocks it and growing stronger for the exercise.
You hit road blocks in life, but I'm living proof that you can overcome those road blocks and become what you want to become.
In the end, it all comes to choices to turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones.
We need to build roads, bridges, airports, locks, dams, and rail that work for this century - not the last one. And let's not forget about updating our energy grid, repairing and replacing our water infrastructure and sewers, and making sure all Americans have access to broadband.
A bridge shouldn't just fall down in the middle of America. Not a bridge that's a few blocks from my house. Not an eight-lane highway. Not a bridge that I drive over with my family every day, along with tens of thousands of Minnesotans. But that's what happened.
Although circumstances may change in the blink of an eye, people change at a slower pace. Even motivated people who welcome change often encounter stumbling blocks that make transformation more complicated than they'd originally anticipated.
We all have challenges. You can let them be obstacles or roadblocks, or you can use them.
In Germany, you have a huge official memorial to the murdered Jews and then you have this artist who's been putting these stumbling blocks, these brass cobblestones, outside the houses Jews were taken away from. It's somewhat controversial and has met some resistance.
I lived in a little shack in Santa Monica, and I was working on 'The O.C.' and when it started airing, I took my laundry down to the laundromat like I always had, and so many people along the two blocks I walked and in the laundromat stopped me and asked me for photographs.
