I flew into a small airport surrounded by cornfields and pastures, ready to carry out the two commands my father had written out for me the night before I left Calcutta: Spend two years studying creative writing at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, then come back home and marry the bridegroom he selected for me from our caste and class.
Bharati Mukherjee
Related I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ... KELLY JONES The solid, middle-class values of hard work, responsibility, family, community, and faith my father ... CHELSEA CLINTON We have tears in our eyes As we wave our goodbyes, We so loved being with you, we three. ROALD DAHL When I was a graduate student at the Iowa Writers' Workshop for fiction writing, I felt both cov... JENNY ZHANG I was working at a restaurant, I booked the role in 'Twilight,' put in my two weeks' not... ASHLEY GREENE My father took me back home, back to Greenwich Village, and he thought by taking me out of the orpha... GREGORY CORSO Before the group left, Gary asked for my phone number, and the next day he called to ask me to dinne... DONNA RICE I wasn't expecting to go to California. I got the call the day before the North-South game. I came h... BRYAN THOMAS I signed schoolboy forms for Watford when I was 12, but then my parents got divorced, and I never ki... VINNIE JONES The cool thing about writing is that there is really never a typical day. Sometimes I get a rhythm g... PATRICIA BRIGGS I lost my dad two years ago to cancer, and before he died, I asked him to write 'Daddy's Lit... PRIYANKA CHOPRA The greatest job I ever had was working on my family farm. Each morning my father would come into my... ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS I was born in Ann Arbor. I lived for a while in Ohio; Pennsylvania, California for 10 years, and now... ETHAN CANIN Take me out to the ball game Take me out with the crowd Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks I don'... JACK NORWORTH Once I was gone for a month and I was just miserable, so I flew back from Florida for two hours just... PAULA POUNDSTONE I flew fighters for the Navy in San Diego for three years, went and did my post-graduate education, ... ALAN G. POINDEXTER I reluctantly left the series because a) my age. I'm 68 tomorrow and time is very precious for m... RICHARD BRIERS I did things like get in a cupboard before the teacher came in at the beginning of a lesson, and the... MIRANDA HART I developed a mania for Fitzgerald - by the time I'd graduated from high school I'd read eve... A. SCOTT BERG Nothing I had written before 'Mary Poppins' had anything to do with children, and I have alw... P. L. TRAVERS I've been with Life now for seventeen years and I have written several articles for them and wil... GORDON PARKS I thought that I was the Warrior and Cersei was the Maid, but all the time she was the Stranger, ... GEORGE R.R. MARTIN [As for himself, the hurricane and flood have eroded any ambitions he had for an early retirement, a... STEPHEN LUCAS I guess this win means a stay of execution for me. But I intend to stick out the remaining two years... KEVIN KEEGAN Dear Beloved woman, Time… so much time has passed since my love wrote his last words fo... TALON P.S. He had more stamina than I will ever have. He came in with Roosevelt in 1932 and served two years un... HAROLD ICKES If someone were to tell me I had twenty years left, and ask me how I'd like to spend them, I'd reply... LUIS BUñUEL My mother died of cystic fibrosis before I knew her. I was two years old, and I don't remember h... JOHN LLOYD YOUNG Women are smarter by basic instinct and by what we have to do to multitask at home and at work. My m... MIREILLE GUILIANO My father came from Germany. My mom came from Venezuela. My father's culturally German, but his ... FRED ARMISEN I'll find you, don't worry. My body won't be with you all the time, but you'll always have my heart.... P.C. CAST I have dictated stories from an airport after writing the story out in longhand on the plane that I ... RICK BRAGG I fought back the memory of our wedding night. He was a virgin; his hands trembled when he touched m... DIANA GABALDON When I was six years old, my parents told me that we were moving back home to Armenia. I didn't ... HENRIKH MKHITARYAN I come from a blue-collar family. My father worked at the American Can Company as a mechanic. He bro... JOSEPH ABBOUD Sam Cooke had a huge influence on me. He left the gospel field at one point and went into the secula... ARETHA FRANKLIN I earned two Emmy nominations for writing, and two of the shows I had written were nominated for bes... RITA MAE BROWN One time, two years ago, I took a draught of morphia, meaning to end my life. My mother found me bef... SARAH WATERS Say you’ll marry me when I come back or, before God, I won’t go. I’ll stay around here and pla... MARGARET MITCHELL Mum left school at 15, and after a few years of modelling and dating jazz musicians, was married by ... NATASCHA MCELHONE I feel like the writers that I'm drawn to, the writers that I really cling to, are the writers w... SAM SHEPARD In my day, at 12 years old, which was 38 years ago, we worked out in summer months for two and a hal... MARK SPITZ My father died five days before I returned to New York. He was only fifty-three years old. My parent... BEVERLY SILLS That night after my parents had kissed me good night and closed my door, I got out of bed and took f... SHEILA MOON I really hate relaxing. I've done three movies in a row, worked for two years straight, and to m... LEONARDO DICAPRIO He drove me home, and I remember sitting in my driveway for two hours in the middle of the night tal... ALLYSON DARNELL I had been playing with matches and burned a small rug. I was in the process of covering up my crime... JEAN-PAUL SARTRE He grunted. 'You have the courage of a warrior.' I watched him turn away and gather the clothes... ALISON GOODMAN I've been away for more than 20 years. The day I left was the day I was ready to come back home. I j... KARL MALONE My pillowcases were totally full and the boots hanging around my neck added to the weight I was carr... CAPTAIN HANK BRACKER, "SUPPRESED I RISE" All the praise I received couldn't substitute for the praise I had never received from my mother... BESS MYERSON When I had got my notes all written out I thought I'd polish it off in two summers, but it took me t... ARNOLD TOYNBEE I was the grunt, ... I used to carry the bricks and the cement. He gave me my first $100 bill — fo... JOE GIRARDI When I brought home a 98 percent on a test, my father would say, 'Ah, ah, where are the other tw... JIDENNA I wrote small stories here and there, then bigger ones. Some were even written for money. I signed u... RACHEL SKLAR The real thing that keeps men and women apart, is fear. Women blame men and men blame women, but the... C. JOYBELL C. He's for you and wants to help you be the person He created you to be. CRAIG GROESCHEL When I'm writing, I spend all my time in The Grocer on Elgin buying ready-made meals; I think th... SADIE JONES My father had kicked me out of his house at the height of an argument over an opinion difference. He... LYNETTE FROMME Therefore thou shalt deal kindly with thy servant; for thou hast brought thy servant into a covenant... BIBLE My first record came out in 1961 and then I had one come out in 1962 and then I had two that came ou... HASIL ADKINS [Manchester United goalkeeper Ben Foster expects to spend the next two years away from Old Trafford ... BEN FOSTER Say, I was on The Craig Kilbourne Show and the next day I flew to Minneapolis. I was at the airport ... MITCH HEDBERG Two years ago I found out about Tate Publishing. Actually, I called them about my children's stories... CYNTHIA VELENO I didn't like school. I was pretty much daydreaming all the time. I would be in the back of the ... CHARLIE MCDERMOTT I'd spent 25 years in government when I left the Defense Department back in '93, decided I... DICK CHENEY When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two thi... S. E. HINTON When I stepped out into the bright sunlight, from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two th... S.E. HINTON The first two or three plays he was in I was about ready to reach out and choke him. After the game,... ROY WILLIAMS When I was 20 years old, my mom flew me for my first Broadway audition for 'The Color Purple,... TODRICK HALL Your father used to come home to my mother, and why may not I be
a chippe of the same block out of ... A.H. BULLEN I've been playing for nine years. My brother started two years before me so that had some influence.... LOUIS MEDINA My grandfather left Cuba when Castro came into power and literally left everything. He had two suitc... CHRISSIE FIT This Bible is for the government of the people, by the people and for the people. JOHN WYCLIFFE All the roads in Baghdad are closed, so he figured he'd probably spend his last night at the airport... CARMELLA HOFFMAN'S The last chapter in 'Alice in Worcestershire' is called 'Writing the book'. I started to write ... ESKAY TEEL He has two rings. He expects a lot out of me, and I know coach (Billy) Buckley expects me to perform... TRENT FREEMAN Back at high school, there was this quarterback who asks me out. He's never paid attention to me... JENNY SLATE Only last night he felt deadly sick, and, after a great deal of
pain, two black crows flew out of h... UNATTRIBUTED AUTHOR 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,' which my father had tried to get made for six, seven ... MICHAEL DOUGLAS I spent several years acquiring the obsessive, day-to-day discipline that's needed if you want t... JOHN DALTON The great thing about my two lives is I love them both. I'm very ambitious and nothing gets in t... RORY MCILROY Lovers lying two by two / Ask not whom they sleep beside, / And the bridegroom all night through / N... A. E. HOUSMAN When I first quit my day job, I was terrified. I called my editors and said I'm trying to make a... MARYJANICE DAVIDSON Gibby and I have felt each other out the past two years and came up with a formula that works for me... ED MORAN For 20 years, my mother, my sister and I had seldom spoken of my father. If he happened to come up i... GEORGE PACKER Hold onto one thought: You're not important. You're not anything. Some day the load we're carrying w... RAY BRADBURY I was actually sacked from my first job. It was at a workshop for a short film this poet had written... DAISY RIDLEY I can ask for a £25,000 advance, but then you spend a year writing the book, and £25,000... MAL PEET From my years of teaching creative writing, I know that new writers take the setting for granted, as... GARRY DISHER He left his editor, our editor, blindsided for two years and he went out and talked disparagingly ab... DAVID BRODER It was my father who - after, at age 15, I had attempted unsuccessfully to drive the family car usin... H. ROBERT HORVITZ And then before going back for my sophomore year, I decided to change my major to arts and sciences,... SARAH SILVERMAN In 2005, I had one more year of college left, and I was taking a summer class in Barbados. I got dis... GARRETT NEFF For me, it was hard in a different way than with Heath. Because I think Heath was kind of constantly... JAKE GYLLENHAAL I didn't know who Walt was at the time, but it didn't take me long to find out. He had written hits ... CHAD BRADFORD When I was studying at the Iowa Writers School, I read a sports writer, Ron Maly, from the Des Moine... DAVID SHIELDS I got my ears pierced when I was 12. I looked up to my older cousin, and he had earrings. Will Smith... SHAMEIK MOORE My father's parents were Irish. Only a year before my father died, he and I went back to Ireland... JOHN C. HAWKES The last two years, even though she hasn't been surrounded by great talent, she has made that talent... CARLTON GREENE
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