How Trump and Clinton prepare for debates…and how you can also prepare.

03 Oct, 2016

I had no idea that Barack Obama curses before public speaking. I think I know at whom he curses before going on stage. I was as shocked to read that as I would have been to hear that 1950s-'60s movie star and cinematic symbol of chastity and virtue Doris Day cursed before going before the cameras. But I doubt that she did so. Doris Day? Fuhgeddaboudit! Anyhow, here's an article about how the current Democratic and Republican presidential candidates prepare for debates. It contains tips and advice you might find useful if you're faced with delivering a speech or engaging in a debate. Enjoy the public speaking article.

How Trump and Clinton prepare for debates…and how you can also prepare.

October 3, 2016June 6, 2026

I had no idea that Barack Obama curses before public speaking. I think I know at whom he curses before going on stage. I was as shocked Read More...

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.

Christopher Hampton

Keep a small can of WD-40 on your desk — away from any open flames — to remind yourself that if you don’t write daily, you will get rusty.

George Singleton

If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it’s to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.

Jim Morrison

No writer has ever yet been known to hang himself as long as he had another chapter left.

Thomas Wolfe

Read a thousand books and your words will flow like a river.

Lisa See

The first chapter sells the book; the last chapter sells the next book.

Mickey Spillane

I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.

Roald Dahl

Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out.

Michael Burke

Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Critics are people who sit on the mountaintop and look down on the battlefield. When the fighting is finished, they take it upon themselves to come down from the mountain and shoot the survivors.

Robert Altman

If you wait for inspiration to write, you’re not a writer. You’re a waiter.

Dan Poynter

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

E. L. Doctorow

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.

Oscar Wilde

A true author, no matter the medium, is an artist with godlike knowledge of his subject, and the proof of his authorship is that his pages smack of authority.

Robert McKee

I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a solid sense of how that ending sounds and feels. You have to know what your voice sounds like at the end of the story, because it tells you how to sound when you begin.

John Irving

What I loved most about calling myself a reporter was that it gave me an excuse to show up anyplace.

Jeanette Walls

It always comes down to characters, and individual stories about courage.

Steven Bochco

Thank your readers and the critics who praise you, and then ignore them. Write for the most intelligent, wittiest, wisest audience in the universe: Write to please yourself.

Harlan Ellison

If you haven’t got an idea, start a story anyway. You can always throw it away, and maybe by the time you get to the fourth page you will have an idea, and you’ll only have to throw away the first three pages.

William C. Gault

My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.