Sometimes I'll come up with a lick that I really love, and I'll try to put the right words to it for years. Suddenly something comes to me that works just right.
Since my student days, I'd been a fan of those books with titles like 'Great Speeches that Changed the World,' as I loved the idea that the right person with the right words at the right time could really make a difference.
All you have to do is respect me. Use the right words. If you don't consider me a woman, then use trans woman. Whatever works for you. But don't try to use something that's a slur or something that's meant to degrade who we are.
I love the right words. I think economy and precision of language are important.
The problem is going to be finding the right words and implementing it in a way that is really dealing with people that are inciting and not preventing honest discussion of the underlying causes of this horrendous political situation the world is in now.
Picture books are the distillation of an idea, and you have to use just the right words. I love that, and I try to use a lot of action verbs.
The challenge of a president himself struggling to find the conjunction between the right words and honest expression, a use of language that respects intellect, truth, and sincerity, has largely been abandoned.
On stage, it's very naked. There's a reason you shake your knees. You're very vulnerable, cos it's just you, your body is the instrument. But I always had confidence in my voice, if I had the right song, the right words to sing.
I don't think I ever really knew the right words to 'Hava Nagilah,' which isn't great for a Jewish singer.
I'm really such a bumbler! Writing fiction is like arranging furniture in a dark room. I can't see what I'm doing. I grope for the right words. I bump against the wrong words and stumble and stub my toe and curse and keep trying to guess what belongs in the space.
