was too lazy to start a whole new story, so I just stuck a princess into the story I was working on... and The Princess Diaries was born!
Meg Cabot

There certainly does seem a possibility that the detective story will come to an end, simply because the public will have learnt all the tricks.
Dorothy L. Sayers

A single prop that does not look real to an audience can louse you up. The same is true of the smallest flaw in setting up the motivation in a story line.
Desi Arnaz

Everyone has their story. Everyone has issues. You have to face your fears.
Lisa Bonet

Many politicians are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim.
Thomas B. Macaulay

If a secret history of books could be written, and the author's private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader!
William Makepeace Thackeray

In the writing process, the more a story cooks, the better.
Doris Lessing

Our top story tonight: Famous TV dolphin flipper was arrested today on prostitution ring charges. He allegedly was seen transporting two 16 year olds across state line for immoral porpoises.
Colin Mochrie

The trouble with telling a good story is that it invariably reminds the other fellow of a dull one.
Sid Caesar

Atari is a very sad story.
Steve Wozniak

You can use martial arts to tell a different story. Ang Lee used martial arts in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" to talk about love.
Jet Li

It's the story of an American who wants to become a dictator and goes to Europe with a sidekick to interview various Fascists to find out how the Nazis and Mussolini got into power.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti

It's an indication of how cynical our society has become that any kind of love story with a sad theme is automatically ridiculed as sentimental junk.
Winona Ryder

The whole earth is the tomb of heroic men and their story is not given only on stone over their clay but abides everywhere without visible symbol woven into the stuff of other mens lives.
Pericles

You shouldn't even be writing this story if you haven't heard me play live. You can't write with the passion you receive until you see a Dick Dale concert.
Dick Dale

The most important aspect of any story, to me, is character.
Nora Roberts

For over a year I continued to submit mss, and have them rejected - the last few with rejection letters indicated the story was pretty good, but I was American.
Nora Roberts

Mary Stewart will always be my goddess. I can pick up one of her early books - one I've read a dozen times - and still slide right into the story.
Nora Roberts

One of my greatest pleasures is falling into a story someone else has written.
Nora Roberts

I generally write a first draft that's pretty lean. Just get the story down.
Nora Roberts

Discovery Channel hostage-taker hated programming

David Dishneau and Sarah Brumfield, The Associated Press, Silver Spring, Maryland, the US | Thu, 09/02/2010 9:25 PM | World

A gunman police shot to death after he took hostages at Discovery Channel's headquarters said he hated the company's shows such as "Kate Plus 8" because they promote population growth and its environmental programming because it did little to save the planet.

Three hostages - two Discovery Communications employees and a security guard - escaped unhurt after the four-hour standoff Wednesday in Silver Spring, just outside Washington, D.C.

After several hours negotiating with the gunman, tactical officers moved in when authorities monitoring him on building security cameras saw him pull out a handgun and point it at a hostage, said Montgomery County Police Chief Thomas Manger.

Capt. Paul Starks, a county police spokesman, identified James J. Lee on Thursday as the suspect.

Manger said and officer shot and killed Lee after hostages began moving and police heard a "pop" they believed to be either a gunshot or an explosive device detonating.

Lee repeatedly said he was "ready to die," according to Manger

It wasn't the first time Lee, a homeless former Californian, had targeted Discovery's headquarters. In February 2008, he was charged with disorderly conduct for staging a "Save the Planet Protest." In court and online, he had demanded an end to Discovery Communications LLC's shows such as TLC's "Kate Plus 8" - a reality show featuring a family with eight children - and "19 Kids and Counting."

Instead, he said, the network should air "programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility."

"Humans are the most destructive, filthy, pollutive creatures around and are wrecking what's left of the planet with their false morals and breeding cultures," Lee wrote in a bitter manifesto on his website.

Lee, 43, also objected to Discovery's environmental programming. He wrote in 2008 that a show he called "Planet Green" was "about more PRODUCTS to make MONEY, not actual solutions."

Police say the gunman burst into the building about 1 p.m. and took hostages in the lobby on the first floor. A gun wasn't his only weapon, as an explosive device on his body detonated when police shot him, Manger said. Authorities later sent in a robot to disarm a device on the gunman's body.

Manger told NBC television Thursday that the gunman had four explosive devices strapped to him. He described two of them as propane cylinders with pipes attached that contained shotgun shells. Manger said the other two were pipe bombs.

The building was to reopen briefly Thursday for employees to return, although the lobby remained closed as police investigate. Counselors were offering assistance to Discovery Channel employees, said Catherine Frymark a company spokeswoman.

NBC News reported that after its producers called Discovery's general number, a man identifying himself as Lee got on the phone and said he had a gun and several bombs.

"I have several bombs strapped to my body ready to go off. I have a device that if I drop it, if I drop it, it will ... explode," the man told NBC.

He said he built the bombs in about three weeks. "I did a lot of research. I had to experiment," he said.

Lee's mission against the Discovery Channel goes back at least a few years. In the February 2008 protest in which he was arrested, he threw fistfuls of cash in the air and paid homeless people to carry signs condemning the network. Police found his pockets stuffed with more than $20,000, according to court records.

Lee served two weeks in jail after his arrest during which doctors evaluated his competency to stand trial. County State's Attorney John McCarthy said Lee was ordered to stay 500 feet (150 meters) away from Discovery headquarters as part of his probation, which ended two weeks ago.

Lee faulted the Discovery Channel for shows as varied as "Future Weapons," "It Takes a Thief" and "Planet Green." Instead, he sought programming based on "My Ishmael," a book by philosopher Daniel Quinn in which a telepathic gorilla instructs a 12-year-old girl on society's failings. On his MySpace page, Lee said his heroes were Quinn and "Star Trek" commander James T. Kirk.

Quinn said in an interview from his Houston home that Lee misinterpreted his book's message about the folly of continually increasing food production to meet population demands.

The autho said he hadn't heard of Lee before Wednesday but called his death "pretty horrible." Had he been able to speak with him, he would have told Lee "he's giving a bad name to the ideas that he's trying to espouse."

None of the 1,900 people who work in the building were hurt, and most made it out before th standoff ended Wednesday.

---

Associated Press Writer Kathleen Miller and Associated Press Photographer Jacquelyn Martin in Silver Spring; Matthew Barakat in Rockville, Maryland; Matt Apuzzo, Eileen Sullivan and Nafeesa Syeed in Washington; Ben Nuckols in Baltimore; Ramit Plushnick-Masti in Houston; and Jacob Jordan in Atlanta contributed to this report.

Typhoon suspends S. Korean flights, subway, kills 3

Sangwon Yoon, The Associated Press, Seoul | Thu, 09/02/2010 2:08 PM | Headlines

  Smashed: People look at a vehicle damaged by a fallen branch after Typhoon Kompasu hit in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday. The typhoon slammed into South Korea on Thursday, killing three people in what officials said was the strongest tropical storm to hit the Seoul area in 15 years. The driver of the car is safe as the person was not in the car. AP/Ahn Young-joon
Typhoon Kompasu slammed into South Korea on Thursday, killing three people in what was called the strongest tropical storm to hit the Seoul area in 15 years.

Powerful gusts knocked over trees, power lines and streetlights, cutting off power to tens of thousands of homes and forcing airports to cancel or delay dozens of international flights, the National Emergency Management Agency said.

More than 60 international flights were delayed or canceled, mostly to and from China, officials at Incheon and Gimpo airports said. Service on two Seoul subway lines and five railway routes was suspended, officials said.

An 80-year-old man died after being hit by a roof tile and a 37-year-old businessman was killed on his way to work by a falling tree branch, the emergency management agency said. A 75-year-old man was electrocuted while examining a transformer, and four people were injured by broken glass, it said.

Elementary and middle schools in the capital, Seoul, were ordered to delay the start of the school day by two hours, while all public and private kindergartens were closed for the day, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education said.

The storm caused at least 10 billion won ($8.3 million) in damages to a soccer stadium in Incheon, west of Seoul, stadium officials said.

Power was out at more than 60,000 homes along South Korea's west coast, officials said.

Kompasu, the Japanese word for "compass," landed on Ganghwa Island, about 40 miles (70 kilometers) west of Seoul, early Thursday morning, officials said.

The Korea Meteorological Administration issued a typhoon alert for Gangwon Province in the east, saying Kompasu was traveling northeast of Seoul and into North Korea.

Police promise 24-hour patrols during Idul Fitri

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Thu, 09/02/2010 7:14 PM | Jakarta 

 

The police will deploy 8,000 officers to provide around-the-clock security during Idul Fitri as part of Operation Ketupat 2010. The nationwide operation will begin Friday, one week before Idul Fitri starts, and last until Sept. 19, one week after the holiday ends.

“We will take strong action against any criminals who threaten life and property, including those who disrupt traffic, during Idul Fitri,” Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Timur Pradopo said Thursday as quoted by kompas.com.

Timur said that his officers will be posted at transportation hubs, including Gambir Train Station and Pulogadung Bus Station, as well as tourist spots such as the Ancol Dreamland amusement park and Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.

work

A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.
Albert Camus

All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

All things are difficult before they are easy.
Thomas Fuller

Anyone who can walk to the welfare office can walk to work.
Al Capp

As I understand it, sport is hard work for which you do not get paid.
Irvin S. Cobb

Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.
Gustave Flaubert

Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.
Thomas A. Edison

Every noble work is at first impossible.
Thomas Carlyle

Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.
Thomas A. Edison

Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
Theodore Roosevelt

Find a job you like and you add five days to every week.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Going to work for a large company is like getting on a train. Are you going sixty miles an hour or is the train going sixty miles an hour and you're just sitting still?
J. Paul Getty

Great ideas originate in the muscles.
Thomas A. Edison

Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all.
Sam Ewing

I have always argued that change becomes stressful and overwhelming only when you've lost any sense of the constancy of your life. You need firm ground to stand on. From there, you can deal with that change.
Richard Nelson Bolles

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
Thomas A. Edison

It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction.
Pablo Picasso

It's a shame that the only thing a man can do for eight hours a day is work. He can't eat for eight hours; he can't drink for eight hours; he can't make love for eight hours. The only thing a man can do for eight hours is work.
William Faulkner

Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction.
Anne Frank

Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work.
Horace

nature

A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.
Lou Holtz

A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease.
John Muir

A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
Samuel Butler

A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.
Carl Reiner

A mistake is simply another way of doing things.
Katharine Graham

A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.
Walt Whitman

A woodland in full color is awesome as a forest fire, in magnitude at least, but a single tree is like a dancing tongue of flame to warm the heart.
Hal Borland

Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative.
H. G. Wells

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.
Russell Baker

All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind.
Abraham Lincoln

All things are artificial, for nature is the art of God.
Thomas Browne

All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.
Toni Morrison

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
Anais Nin

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.
William Shakespeare

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
Albert Camus

Beauty for some provides escape, who gain a happiness in eyeing the gorgeous buttocks of the ape or Autumn sunsets exquisitely dying.
Langston Hughes

Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever remains to them?
Rose Kennedy

Break open a cherry tree and there are no flowers, but the spring breeze brings forth myriad blossoms.
Ikkyu Sojun

Breathless, we flung us on a windy hill, Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.
Rupert Brooke

success

A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.
David Brinkley

Action is the foundational key to all success.
Pablo Picasso

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.
Abraham Lincoln

Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure.
George Edward Woodberry

Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.
Dale Carnegie

Don't aim for success if you want it; just do what you love and believe in, and it will come naturally.
David Frost

Don't confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other.
Erma Bombeck

Failure is success if we learn from it.
Malcolm Forbes

Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success.
Dale Carnegie

Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil.
J. Paul Getty

How can they say my life is not a success? Have I not for more than sixty years got enough to eat and escaped being eaten?
Logan P. Smith

I couldn't wait for success, so I went ahead without it.
Jonathan Winters

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.
Bill Cosby

I honestly think it is better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at something you hate.
George Burns

I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.
Michael Jordan

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no point in being a damn fool about it.
W. C. Fields

If you want to achieve things in life, you've just got to do them, and if you're talented and smart, you'll succeed.
Juliana Hatfield

In order to succeed you must fail, so that you know what not to do the next time.
Anthony J. D'Angelo

In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.
Bill Cosby

It's not enough that I should succeed - others should fail.
David Merrick