I think that if the novel’s task is to describe where we find ourselves and how we live now, the novelist must take a good, hard look at the most central facts of contemporary life – technology and science.
Any time they try to describe the tsunami to us, I am so touched by how high they look in the air, when they explain it with their hands-they go so high.
I wouldn’t describe the artist Theaster Gates as a mentor, but I pay attention and keep my ears open when I’m with him.
I think that we need to allow words to be words. If my self-esteem and my self-worth linger on words that are used to describe me, then you have a problem in itself.
When the word ‘nostalgia’ was coined in the 18th century, it was used to describe a pathology – not so much a sense of lost time, but a severe homesickness.
The language of violence that many whites use to describe anti-racist endeavors is not without significance, as it is another example of how white fragility distorts reality.
I describe Jeb Bush as a ‘low-energy’ individual, and unfortunately for him, that stuck. And it’s true: he’s a low-energy person. That doesn’t make him a bad person.
I was always the kid who was putting on plays, and so I have no idea how to describe it. I just have always wanted to be an actor.
Okay, I am happy with the way I look, but I have never, never, ever thought of myself as a ‘pretty girl.’ Honestly. When I read some of these scripts I’m sent, and they describe the heroine as ‘incredibly beautiful,’ I wonder why they sent it to me.
When I was in Vojvodina, it is not possible to describe. If you play one bad ball, one little mistake, they are, ‘Oh, what is that?’ Then, some players, they are afraid to take responsibility. They don’t feel well, you know; you don’t have freedom to show yourself.
I would describe myself as a very plain but very honest person.
If you look at the language of illness, you can use it to describe race – you could experience race as an illness. You can experience income level, at many different levels, as a form of illness. You can experience age as an illness. I mean, it’s all got an illness component.
I love performing in front of a live audience and just stepping out in front of ruddy Royal Albert Hall is just something, I can’t describe it.
Describe character using dialogue. Describe character using what the characters see or do or think, but not what they had done or where they had been.
If you asked my kids to describe me, they’d go through a whole list of words before even thinking about Parkinson’s. And honestly, I don’t think about it that much either. I talk about it because it’s there, but it’s not my totality.
To describe the world Michael Jackson has created around himself as a childhood fantasy isn’t quite accurate. Thanks to wealth and celebrity, he has been able to live as a superannuated child. With the help of plastic surgery and dramatic affectation, he has made himself look and sound pre-pubescent.
I tell people: ‘Do what you love, but it can also be hard to know what you love early on. But when you think about it and you describe the options, which one gets you a little more excited?’
I never quite know how to describe what I do. I normally just say, ‘Oh, I’m a magician’, which probably puts fairly naff ideas in people’s minds but is pleasantly conversation-stopping.
Today, war of necessity is used by critics of military action to describe unavoidable response to an attack like that on Pearl Harbor that led to our prompt, official declaration of war, while they characterize as unwise wars of choice the wars in Korea, Vietnam and the current war in Iraq.
When you work for the C.I.A. or as a diplomat, or serve in the military, you’re not serving as a Democrat or a Republican; you serve as an American, whatever your personal moral compass or political views might be. So that would describe me.
My scripts, they’re pretty serious. I basically just describe stuff. I don’t put too many notes and letters to the editors. But when I wrote ‘KGBLT,’ in parentheses I wrote, ‘Well this is the best thing I’ve ever written. It will all be downhill from here. I’m so sorry for the rest of my career.’
Gangnam is a territory in Seoul, Korea. I describe it as noble at the daytime and going crazy at the night time. I compare ladies to the territory. So – noble at the daytime, going crazy at the night time – and the lyric says I am the right guy for the lady who is like that.
American politics, like most things, is a story of what statisticians describe as the reversion to the mean.
Ask any teenage girl to describe her perfect bedroom, and you’ll get answers like ‘a room with a private phone line, a place to hang out with friends, and for it to be way-cool and funky.’ Ask parents the same question, and ‘a locked door that opens on their 21st birthday’ might top the list!
I wear Chanel bronzer, maybe a little Laura Mercier Tinted Moisturizer Oil-Free Broad Spectrum SPF 20, and some lip balm, but that’s about it. One word to describe my makeup style would have to be ‘easy.’
I’m friends with people that probably would describe themselves as socialists and people that are much more conservative than I am. I can always find a middle ground.
Why did I write ‘The Emperor of All Maladies?’ A 56-year-old woman with an abdominal sarcoma, having undergone two remissions and a relapse, asked me to describe what she was battling. By the time I had finished answering her, I realised that I had written 600 pages.
We’ve been socialised and told that there is a way to describe people, and that way is by their gender or their sex.
Unease is the wrong word to describe our wealth. I make my sacrifices and never think I am not allowed to earn so much. But I know I am lucky and I must use my platform to help those who need support.
I don’t try to make one thing. I really try to experiment, even if its just the vocals or the beat. I can’t really describe my sound.
When you delegate work to the member of the team, your job is to clearly frame success and describe the objectives.
I couldn’t describe how little interest I have in men. Or I could – but I don’t think that it would be appropriate.
Even with the approach that I take in Congress, which is to bring people together to get things done – many people describe that as ‘reasonable’ – I couldn’t vote for John Boehner’s re-elect.
That’s the whole problem with science. You’ve got a bunch of empiricists trying to describe things of unimaginable wonder.
The word inventors have to create a new term to describe how I felt when I learned that ‘Refund’ was on the shortlist for the Frank O’Connor International Story prize – Excited, thrilled, honored, none of them quite do it.
Patty Griffin is iconic, and there’s no other word to really describe her. She is iconic for a lot of people – not only for me but for a lot of fans. Her voice is one of a kind, and she’s such an important figure in the American music scene.
Words can’t describe how one would feel in that moment after doing a test for something you really want but in your heart you don’t think you have a chance of getting.
I will undoubtedly have to seek what is happily known as gainful employment, which I am glad to say does not describe holding public office.
Our modern understanding of cultural appropriation is highly individualised. It’s all about what Halloween costume you wear, or who’s cooking biryani. But the way in which the idea was first used was to describe a relationship of dominance and exploitation between a global ruling class and a globally subjugated one.
When you set a goal in your mind of what you want to be and you actually achieve that, it’s a feeling that’s very hard to describe.
You never think about being wide open. I don’t know if I can describe the feeling. Tremendous.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, I rushed home before the kids left for school and gathered them around our dining room table and told them what had happened. Like everyone else, we struggled for words to describe to our kids why such a thing would occur.
In ‘Saaho,’ I play a grey character, someone who is complex from within. Devraj is someone who has grown cold over time, to the extent that people might describe him as someone who has died a hundred times.
I’m a singer and a songwriter. It’s hard to describe what I sound like when I sing.
I didn’t know the term ‘synesthesia’ until I was working on ‘Cruel Summer.’ Halfway into writing that, I really understood that, my entire life, I had been trying to describe this condition of mine: through painting, through this seven-screen Surround Vision film we shot in Qatar, through all these things.
I could describe my career in two words: who knew. I was on the path to becoming a professional baseball player, but I got injured in college. When I decided to move out to L.A. to try acting, nobody was betting on me, not even my family. But it’s always been that way for me; nothing has come easy.
I am quite driven. I know what I think, and I know what I want to achieve, but I also hope that people who are asked to describe me would describe me as pretty down-to-earth, loyal, friendly. The more experience I have got in politics, I think the more I have allowed me to shine through.
That’s what art is for me. It helps you maintain hope by giving you the ability to either create outside your reality, or to describe your reality.
