I am personally acquainted with hundreds of journalists, and the opinion of the majority of them would not be worth tuppence in private, but when they speak in print it is the newspaper that is talking (the pygmy scribe is not visible) and then their utterances shake the community like the thunders of prophecy.
I have criticized absent people so often, and then discovered, to my humiliation, that I was talking with their relatives, that I have grown superstitious about that sort of thing and dropped it.
Though there is one part of writing that is solid and you do it no harm by talking about it, the other is fragile, and if you talk about it, the structure cracks and you have nothing.
Don’t use the language of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ when talking about blood sugar numbers – these are data points, not judgments of your ability to manage your diabetes.
Interviewing people, I don't miss that at all. I do miss kibitzing with the audience because after every show I would spend half an hour to 40 minutes talking to people.
"In my youth," said his father, "I look to the law, And argued each case with my wife; And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw Has lasted the rest of my life."
People often say to me, 'I understand what you are talking about intellectually, but I don't really feel it, I don't realize it,' and I am apt to reply, 'I wonder whether you do understand it intellectually, because if you did you would also feel it.'
I think it's hypocritical and inconsistent for us to attack this one group of people over any other group of people that are within our churches today. If we were talking about one of their sin issues we wouldn't have addressed this at all. I find that hypocritical and inconsistent.
That is not the best sermon which makes the hearers go away talking to one another and praising the speaker, but which makes them go away thoughtful and serious, and hastening to be alone.
Every time one of us starts talking about more effective immigration controls, somebody else throws up the Statue of Liberty, how we're a nation of immigrants and all of that. The debate takes on tinges of racism, emotion.
And so, when I was a young writer I always worked hard on imagery, and I knew that the roots of imagery were the senses - and that if my readers could feel, taste and see what I was talking about, I would be able to tell them a story.
There is another side to me which people don't often see, but it's very hard for me to show that. When I do interviews, I'm talking to people I don't know and when you speak to a stranger you don't open up, do you? In my position, people are always looking for something to say about me. And anything I do say, given half-a-chance they'll turn it round into something spectacular so I've got to be very careful. That's why it's only my friends and family who know the real me. Now my wife, Lainya, she could tell you a few stories.