Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I don't read novels, but my semiotics study influenced everything about the way I read and edit and write.
You'd think that radio was around long enough that someone would have coined a word for staring into space.
I liked the people at Brown, while I really disliked most of the fellow students I had met at Northwestern.
I don't think I ever played any sports recreationally for my own pleasure. I was bad at them from the start.
Brad Pitt is so good-looking there's a lightbulb inside of him shooting good-looking-ness in all directions.
I'm going to go with Chihuahua, just because I can't think of anything more frightening than a giant Chihuahua.
It's not a terribly original thing to say, but I love Raymond Carver. For one thing, he's fun to read out loud.
When I was in college, I was a semiotics major, which is this hopelessly pretentious body of French literary theory.
I was a temp secretary for a long time, and I went at it with a passion, and I tried to do a nice job in all my jobs.
We're Jews, my family, and Jews break down into two distinct subcultures: book Jews and money Jews. We were money Jews.
If you want somebody to tell you a story, one of the most easiest and effective ways is if you're telling them a story.
But you can make good radio, interesting radio, great radio even, without an urgent question, a burning issue at stake.
Brad Pitt is really game to talk about whatever and is really fun to talk to and was totally up for discussing anything.
I hate dream sequences in movies and T.V. shows generally for their heavy-handed symbolism and storytelling tediousness.
You will be fierce. You will fearless. And you will make work you know in your heart is not as good as you want it to be.
It takes a while. It's gonna take you a while. It's normal to take a while. You just have to fight your way through that.
But sadly, one of the problems with being on public radio is that people tend to think you're being sincere all the time.
It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions.
Honestly, I am so ignorant of how dance works that I cant even imagine a story that you would want to tell through movement.
Honestly, I am so ignorant of how dance works that I can't even imagine a story that you would want to tell through movement.
You can criticize yourself to a point to do something better, or you criticize yourself to a point where you inhibit yourself.
Like most people in radio - and in magic - I'm not cool. I know people who are hip, and I can feel distance between them and me.
I've actually done events at radio stations where I feel like I've had to give a little talk in behalf of television as a medium.
In some theoretical way I know that a half-million people hear the show. But in a day-to-day way, there's not much evidence of it.
Honestly, like, I'm a superfan of the 'New York Times,' but I know nothing about how they put it together, and I really don't care.
I'm not a natural storyteller at all. If anything, I'm a natural interviewer, a natural listener, but I'm not a natural storyteller.
The entire culture was organized for people who are happy. People who are miserable need reassurance that other people are miserable.
Writing is just very difficult. I'm an adequate performer. And I think I have a special talent as an editor. Editing is what I do best.
I don't think I'm better than everyone else at anything, but I am very quick at organizing a big mass of interview tape into a structure.
I dont go looking for stories with the idea of wrongness in my head, no. But the fact is, a lot of great stories hinge on people being wrong.
Honestly, there are so many things about structuring a story for film and telling a story for film that are really different from doing radio.
I don't go looking for stories with the idea of wrongness in my head, no. But the fact is, a lot of great stories hinge on people being wrong.
I was a chubby, unathletic kid and conformed to every possible stereotype you could imagine of someone who would end up in public broadcasting.
There is a feeling, when you listen to radio, that it's one person, and they're talking to you, and you really feel their presence as one person.
For people starting public radio shows, one of the things you have to do is you have to talk every single public radio station into picking you up.
I didn't watch T.V. from the time I was 18 'til my mid-30s. And then I got a T.V. to watch 'The Sopranos.' I realized, 'Oh, T.V. is really interesting.'
It took, for me, a long time to develop this idea of what to do on the radio. But from the beginning of my time in radio, I had pretty non-traditional tasks.
Honestly, I find the analysis of dreams is one of the dullest things. I say this as a therapist kid. I find them deeply uninteresting, as a window to the soul.
I think good radio often uses the techniques of fiction: characters, scenes, a big urgent emotional question. And as in the best fiction, tone counts for a lot.
I'm a reporter - if I don't interview someone, I don't have much to say, and I definitely can't just sit down and knock out 800 words on any subject you give me.
When I say something untrue on the air, I mean for it to be transparently untrue. I assume people know when I'm just saying something for effect. Or to be funny.
I only got interested in radio once I talked my way into an internship at NPR's headquarters in Washington, D.C. in 1978, never having heard the network on the air.
Not owning a car anymore, I feel like I'm barely an American. I miss it. And I barely ever get to listen to the radio in the car, which is the best place for radio.
Nobody tells people who are beginners - and I really wish somebody had told this to me - that all of us who do creative work... get into it because we have good taste.
Any story hits you harder if the person delivering it doesn't sound like some news robot but in fact sounds like a real person having the reactions a real person would.
I feel like, in general in my work life, my main goal has been to just be in a situation where I'm not bored with my job. That's been the entire principle. Got my wish.
The truth is, I just don't have that much time to see movies. So if I get two hours where I can actually see a film, I don't want to go backwards, I want to go forwards.
I love traveling. But I haven't had big, transformative experiences while on the road. When I go out on the road, it's to go out and get a story or do a promotional event.
I remember that in Baltimore, where I grew up, we would drive by the radio station and tower of WBAL, and I would try to picture the people inside and what they did there.
I feel like in an interview situation, it's a kind of intimacy that I can understand and handle - versus in real life, when I'm much more of a bumbler and have a hard time.