Long before the idea of a writer's conference was a glimmer in anyone's eye, writers learned by reading the work of their predecessors. They studied meter with Ovid, plot construction with Homer, comedy with Aristophanes; they honed their prose style by absorbing the lucid sentences of Montaigne and Samuel Johnson.

Francine Prose

Marcus Samuelsson is a chef who inspires me everyday. He has such a deep understanding of flavors and techniques. His food is representative of the diverse world that we live in. What he has done in Harlem with Red Rooster is very special. Marcus is not just a chef, he's a food activist.

Aaron Sanchez

Samuel Johnson called it the vanity of human wishes, and Buddhists talk about the endless cycle of desire. Social psychologists say we get trapped on a hedonic treadmill. What they all mean is that we wish, plan and work for things that we think will make us happy, but when we finally get them, we aren't nearly as happy as we thought we'd be.

Alison Gopnik

Shortly after Pearl Harbor, FDR committed a most visionary act: He appointed a Harvard historian to write the official account of the U.S. Navy in World War II. Samuel Eliot Morison was given the rank of lieutenant commander, with the right to interview anyone of whatever status.

Alistair Horne

Great actors like Willem Dafoe and Ellen Page and Samuel L. Jackson will go and do a videogame, because they understand that storytelling isn't just necessarily about filmmaking.

Andy Serkis

The Romantic poets were the prototype ramblers, and I've often found myself following in their footsteps - although perhaps not all of their footsteps since a typical walk for Samuel T. Coleridge might last two days and cover 145km.

Arthur Smith

Gramercy Park is a four-acre square given in perpetuity to the residents surrounding it, 170 years ago, by Samuel Ruggles, a real estate developer of immoderate means.

Bill Buford

Discovering Samuel Beckett in college was a big deal for me. I realized you could be very funny and very dark at the same time.

Billy Collins

I produced and directed a movie a couple years ago that won some awards that Samuel Goldwyn released called 'The Last Good Time'. I wrote, produced and directed it, but I wasn't in it.

Bob Balaban

Quite naturally, the men who led in stirring up the revolt against Great Britain and in keeping the fighting temper of the Revolutionists at the proper heat were the boldest and most radical thinkers - men like Samuel Adams, Thomas Paine, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson.

Charles A. Beard

I think there's something about supernatural shows that people see and just want to put me in them! I don't know. I just finished another show - 'The Nine Lives of Chloe King,' with Skyler Samuels, who was my girlfriend in 'The Gates' - and I play another supernatural character on that show.

Colton Haynes

Big up Samuel L. Jackson, because here's a guy who has broken down doors.

Daniel Kaluuya

For some reason, I got really obsessed with Samuel Pepys and his diaries when I read them, and with that period. I was probably a man with a wig and a frock coat in a past life!

Daniel Rigby

To go back and read Swift and Defoe and Samuel Johnson and Smollett and Pope - all those people we had to read in college English courses - to read them now is to have one of the infinite pleasures in life.

David McCullough

The wedding ring on my left hand was bought by my grandfather, Samuel Miliband, in Brussels in 1920. I never knew him, as he died when I was one. But his ring was kept by my aunt until it was placed on my finger by my wife Louise 32 years later.

David Miliband

'Barely Lethal' is a non-Disney project, and is with Samuel L. Jackson, Hailee Steinfeld, and Jessica Alba. It is a really, really phenomenal film.

Dove Cameron

Samuel L. Jackson is such a riot. He's so incredibly normal, and he's a blast to be around. I can't even describe to you how he's just sort of everybody's crazy uncle.

Dove Cameron

In 1984, Jim Koch used his family's lager recipe to start Boston Beer Company, which has since become the largest 'craft' brewer in the country. He brews Samuel Adams, a rich lager named after the American revolutionary that comes with the tagline, 'Take pride in your beer.'

Elizabeth Flock

I didn't read much SF as a kid - I was a total Tolkien geek - but I started reading Samuel Delany and Angela Carter and Ursula LeGuin in high school, and I was definitely taken with the notion that here was a literature that could explore various notions of gender identity and how it affects the culture at large.

Elizabeth Hand

Long before the idea of a writer's conference was a glimmer in anyone's eye, writers learned by reading the work of their predecessors. They studied meter with Ovid, plot construction with Homer, comedy with Aristophanes; they honed their prose style by absorbing the lucid sentences of Montaigne and Samuel Johnson.

Francine Prose

During the Samuel Johnson days they had big men enjoying small talk; today we have small men enjoying big talk.

Fred Allen