Greek architecture taught me that the column is where the light is not, and the space between is where the light is. It is a matter of no-light, light, no-light, light. A column and a column brings light between them. To make a column which grows out of the wall and which makes its own rhythm of no-light, light, no-light, light: that is the marvel of the artist.
Equal and united people can above all become a part of the civilization toward which mankind is moving. If we cannot be at the head of the column leading to such a civilization, there is certainly no need for us to be at is tail.
I started working for the 'NY Observer' when I was 33. After I had been writing for them for about a year and a half the editor said, 'Your stories are the most talked about stories in the 'Observer'; you should have your own column. '
Sometimes I talk to religious people about my column or what I do, and I ask them to, you know, read 20 or 30 of them and then come tell me that the message at the heart of every column isn't, 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. ' In every possible sense.
Whoever becomes the head of the National Theater finds himself in a position like that of Nelson's Column - pigeons dump on you because you're there.
Fame compensates for a column of wants.
When you're given a newspaper column, you're not being paid to sit on a fence and scratch your chin and say 'On the one hand this' and 'On the other hand that. ' You're getting paid for your opinion.
When I turned 45, I lay in bed reflecting on all life had taught me. My soul sprang a leak and ideas flowed out. My pen simply caught them and set the words on paper. I typed them up and turned them into a newspaper column of the 45 lessons life taught me. When I hit 50, I added five more lessons and the paper ran the column again.
Consider the momentous event in architecture when the wall parted and the column became.
I must not mix champage, whiskey, and gin. (Repeated fifty times to fill column. )
I was never good at painting. The great turning point came when I had a block of wood and I carved a shape into the wood and put a small piece of timber into that space - like a negative - and so it made an endless column, only inward.
I think blogging and the ability to instantaneously respond to news items has changed the way we approach all media. We're seeing people talking back to columnists, and going much further in the sexual realm than most papers, even alternative weeklies, will publish. I'm surprised more papers aren't having people do what you're doing with an online only column, and to be honest, I read almost all the media I do read online, and plenty of other people do, too, so I don't know what's stopping them.
The bulk of the emails tend to come after a column. I can get about 2,000 after a column.
A drawing, brought by Colonel Coombs, from a sculptured column in a cave-temple in the South of India, represents the first pair at the foot of the ambrosial tree, and a serpent entwined among the heavily-laden boughs, presenting to them some of the fruit from his mouth.
I just wanted to have fun for myself - I felt I had a lot to say, and I realized that I missed having a magazine as a place to express my ideas. The Times column is a place for me to unload those perceptions
My boots were so heavy that I was glad there was a column beneath us. How could such a lonely person have been living so close to me my whole life? If I had known, I would have gone up to keep him company.
In terms of column writing, with the exception of one or two others, I am probably paid as well as you can be as a journalist. I attribute some of this success to my ability to haggle. The main thing in this game is to ask for money and when they tell you the amount you say, "no, I want more".
I would encourage people to go to NYTIMES. com and read this column and you can see for yourself.
Probably also due to the political situation getting just worse and more extreme, but also this distance and this sadness of this feeling that I gave up - that I surrendered, that I felt that I lost my small war. So the whole column is different than the columns that I used to write back home, back in Jerusalem.
I don't write about my life in my column.
