Interviewing Quotes

I began auditioning for acting jobs at the ripe old age of 12. Thirty years later, including a 15-year run on television, I sometimes just get offers for work. Often, however, I am still required to run pell-mell around Los Angeles or New York, interviewing for film and TV jobs. ~ Diane Farr

I shoot for 'Extra' three times a week, and that's great for Las Vegas, too. In addition to interviewing stars who are here for shows, parties and premieres, I'll also get peoples' reactions to different news items and topical gossip. ~ Holly Madison

I remember interviewing someone I actually felt bad for, and therefore didn't want to take an ironic stance against him. It actually turned out to be a really funny piece. ~ Rob Corddry

It's the rejection that is hard. It's not the interviewing that's hard. It's not the photography that's hard. It's, you know, approaching people all day long and having a good portion of those people reject you and some of them be rude. ~ Brandon Stanton

Interviewing Hugh McIlvanney, I got to read lots of his stuff again. I'm a big fan of his writing. ~ Sebastian Coe

She told me that since they date exclusively [in Judaism] with the intent to marry, the conversation is very direct right from the start. You're not sitting quietly next to each other at a movie wondering if you can get over his awful shirt. You're interviewing. And from your first date, you're focusing, apparently, on only three questions: Do we want the same things out of life? Do we bring out the best in each other? Do we find each other attractive? That's it. In that order. ~ Kristin Newman

I got to the end of the story before I'd realized what she'd done. Just as Jake had waited, interviewing the Mariners, Jillian had waited out my first answers so that I would give her a better one. ~ Jeanette Ingold

My stuff always starts with interviews. I start interviewing people, and then slowly but surely, a movie insinuates itself. ~ Errol Morris

Through all of this lovely interviewing, and nice things people say, and the rest of it, I have learned that I am an actor. That is my profession. That is my job. That is how I make a living. So I am just out there making a living. ~ Melissa Leo

We need to be aware that we are friendly with people we are interviewing, we aren't friends with them. ~ Chip Morgan

I am interviewing people with a spirit of genuine interest and compassion, and therefore, the general tone of the site is one of genuine interest and compassion. The moment that culture changes, 'Humans of New York' is no longer viable. ~ Brandon Stanton

If Barbara Walters was interviewing me, I'd figure her career was as dead as mine! ~ Tom T. Hall

You know what makes no sense? A bunch of penises making choices for vaginas. That's like interviewing a turtle on the struggles of being a dolphin. We ~ Luvvie Ajayi

This had to be Finn Dalton's mother. It simply had to be. From the moment Nash had given Carrie what seemed like the impossible assignment of interviewing Finn, she'd looked for out-of-the-box ways to locate him. Her mother's mention of work on the Alaskan pipeline and that many of those employed came from Washington State had led to a breakthrough. At least she hoped so. The search led Carrie to the birth record for a Finnegan Paul Dalton, not in Alaska but in her own birth state of Washington. That record revealed his mother's name - Joan Finnegan Dalton - which then led to a divorce decree, along with a license for a second marriage several years later. Tax records indicated that Joan, whose married name was now Reese, continued to reside in Washington State. Her hope was that Joan Dalton Reese would be willing to help Carrie find Finn. ~ Debbie Macomber

No one that has ever been in combat ever wants to see war anywhere in the world. It is horrible. It's horrible looking at the pock-marked walls. It's horrible looking at the flesh embedded on walls in Bosnia. It was horrible looking and interviewing and talking to the kids who lost their parents, because Saddam Hussein decided to feed their parents to the lions in downtown Baghdad. To characterize particularly myself, but other groups, as wanting to advocate a war I think is not only disingenuous, I think it's a patent falsehood intentionally created to stigmatize a group of people. ~ Matt Shea

If someone teaches you alignment and - I'm not a tai chi expert by any stretch - so interviewing me about tai chi is kind of the cart before the horse - but just from my point of view as a student, it's simply that Master Ren can show you the relationship of power, stance and form. ~ Lou Reed

In the meantime, I would work in the relief office and I began interviewing people . . . and found out how everybody, in order to be eligible for relief, had to have reached absolute bottom. You didn't have to have a lot of brains to realize that once they reached that stage and you put them on an allowance of a dollar a day for food - how could they ever pull out of it? ~ Studs Terkel

Do you realize what a special assignment you have here?
I just stared at her. Special assignment would me like interviewing Lady Gaga. This was just cruel and unusual torture. ~ Jenny B. Jones

One minute I was completely unknown, barely able to feed my family, living on pennies. The next minute, Katie Couric was interviewing me on the breakfast show. ~ Nick Bantock

When you are interviewing someone, don't just write down what he says. Ask yourself: Does this guy remind you of someone? What does the room feel like? Notice smells, voice inflection, neighborhoods you pass through. Be a cinematographer. ~ Gene Weingarten

Their term project consists of a fieldwork collection of folklore that they create by interviewing family members, friends, or anyone they can manage to persuade to serve as an informant. ~ Alan Dundes

After investigating the UFO phenomenon all over the world, after studying thousands of pages of released government documents, and interviewing eyewitnesses and insiders, including generals, intelligence officers, cosmonauts and astronauts, military and commercial pilots, I do not have the shadow of a doubt anymore that we are indeed visited by extraterrestrial intelligences. The evidence just does not allow another conclusion. ~ Michael Hesemann

In the course of interviewing, I've discovered that if you don't give your guest something to react to, they don't react. They simply say what they've been saying every time they've been interviewed. The last thing you want is to have people say to you what they've said to someone else. ~ Michael Silverblatt

Basically, it's somebody who got stuck having to interview me who really wants to be a novelist, so they're writing these novellas and I was like, "It's not true, that didn't happen, they just made all that up! Why don't they just go ahead and be a novelist instead of bothering with interviewing me?" ~ Christian Bale

I learned that I never really know the true story of my guests' lives, that I have to content myself with knowing that when I'm interviewing somebody, I'm getting a combination of fact and truth and self-mythology and self-delusion and selective memory and faulty memory. ~ Terry Gross

I did my degree in journalism, and I then went on to being a games journalist, reviewing and previewing games and writing about the industry, visiting and interviewing developers. ~ Rhianna Pratchett

(While interviewing at the Hunan women's prison
'I have lived with several men, and let them amuse themselves with me. Because of that, I have been sent to two labour reeducation camps and been sentenced to prison twice. ( ... ) When people curse me for having no shame, I don't get angry. All the Chinese care about is "face", but they don't understand how their faces are linked to the rest of their bodies. ~ Xinran

After endless textbook readings and interviewing 'experts,' I still could not grasp the full concept of 'love,' the mystique of it, why people killed for it, or died for it. Even the experts were confused. Biologists said the phenomenom we called love was just a bombardment of chemicals that affected our brain: dopamine, which grabbed us the throat in the guise of lust, and oxytocin, which settled us down to the mundane complacencies of marriage. On the other hand, Behaviorists thought love was really the search for God. No one agreed. The thing most humans thought we knew about love, we didn't know at all. And all that we did not know was astonishing. Even more astonishing was what passed for love. ~ Kiana Davenport

It doesn't matter if I go on CBS, PBS or Fox. Whoever is interviewing me is going to want to create some conflict in the story, or it's not interesting. That's just the way the news is. ~ Mark McKinnon

While Adrian was interviewing in the back, I got a table and some coffee. Trey came to visit me after about fifteen minutes.
"Is that really your brother?" he demanded.
"Yes," I said, hoping I sounded convincing.
"When you said he was looking for a job, I pictured a male version of you. I figured he'd want to color code the cups or something."
"What's your point?" I asked.
Trey shook his head. "My point is that you'd better keep looking. I was just back there and overheard him talking with my manager. She was explaining the cleanup he would have to do each night. Then he said something about his hands and manual labor. ~ Richelle Mead

I'm not a parenting expert by any means, but I've been interviewing and writing about kids for almost 20 years. ~ Nancy Jo Sales

Three people are interviewing for a job. The first thinks his odds are 33.3 percent of landing the job. The second guy, so sure of himself, thinks his odds are 100 percent. The third guy, however, knows he has a 50 % chance of getting the job, and a 25 % chance of getting convicted of murder. He likes those odds. ~ Jarod Kintz

One of the difficulties about interviewing people in Rwanda is that the country is trying to get on with ordinary life and some people just don't want to get involved in this. ~ Tony Greig

There have been people who represent something very symbolic and I've been freaked out interviewing them. ~ Joel Stein

Waking up Thursday morning to another dreary day and the sense of being physically stuffed, they focused on FISH. While Charlotte interviewed the postmaster about the origin, techniques, and ingredients for his best-in-Maine lobster bakes, Nicole set off to gather recipes for glazed salmon, baked pesto haddock, and cod crusted with marjoram, a minted savory unique to Quinnipeague, and sage. ~ Barbara Delinsky

If, Sir, I possessed the power of conveying unlimited sexual attraction through the potency of my voice, I would not be reduced to accepting a miserable pittance from the BBC for interviewing a faded female in a damp basement. ~ Gilbert Harding

Defining a job candidate who is a "cultural fit" is about the person being open minded, looks for the positive in others and knowing that life is too short to focus on differences. When interviewing someone, I ask them to describe something they are proud of and why. The best answers are a challenge they overcame using a unique approach. ~ Tom Golway

Hanging out is good historical methodology. ~ Jean Pfaelzer

Interviewing is not a democratic art. ~ Andrew O'Hagan

I like doing the readings and the autographing, but the interviewing gets a little tedious because you get asked the same questions every day and sometimes three or four times a day. ~ Terry McMillan

What phrase was that, sir?" "You said something about interviewing people face to - - " He shook his head, his tongue dabbing quickly at his lips. "I would rather not say it. I think you know what I mean. The phrase conjured up the most striking picture of the two of us breathing - breathing one another's breath." The Solarian shuddered. "Don't you find that repulsive?" "I don't know that I've ever thought of it so." "It seems so filthy a habit. And as you said it and the picture rose in my mind, I realized that after all we were in the same room and even though I was not facing you, puffs of air that had been in your lungs must be reaching me and entering mine. With my sensitive frame of mind - - " Baley said, "Molecules all over Solaria's atmosphere have been in thousands of lungs. Jehoshaphat! They've been in the lungs of animals and the gills of fish." "That ~ Isaac Asimov

The challenge of directing and interviewing helped me with confidence, and I learnt so much. If I hadn't had the brain hemorrhage, I might never have done it. ~ Maryam D'Abo

When you are interviewing someone, never let your camera person turn off the camera. The second you turn off the camera, they'll say the magic thing that you'd been looking for the whole interview. People want to relax after the performance is done. Don't be afraid of awkward silence. That is your friend. ~ Marshall Curry

I try to see interviewing as performance art, and just take it as it comes. ~ Liz Phair

Thoughtfully or thoughtlessly he had left the keys in the ignition, and I switched on the radio. It was tuned to WQED. A local arts reporter I didn't particularly admire was interviewing old Q. about his life and work and personal demons. I reflected for a moment on the journalistic euphemism that allowed personal demons to writers who were only fucked up. ~ Michael Chabon

When I was there, something clicked in my head; I found myself interviewing people, searching out facts and figures. Later on I became much more self-conscious of what I was doing. ~ Joe Sacco

I don't view interviewing as much of a performance. My whole life is in essence a performance but singing and dancing for television is an entirely different thing. ~ Lady Gaga

We look for people who are passionate about something. In a way, it almost doesn't matter what you're passionate about. What we really look for when we're interviewing people is what they've shown an initiative to do on their own. ~ Mark Zuckerberg

What characteristics do I look for when hiring somebody? That's one of the questions I ask when interviewing. I want to know what kind of people they would hire. ~ Jeff Bezos

On a medical school professor noted for slowly, carefully interviewing the patient: He taught the love of truth. ~ David McCullough

Like interviewing a new cleaner. Do you want someone who can give you the history of cleaning and the theory of cleaning, or do you want someone who'll just get down and clean your fucking house? They chose you because they think you'll clean their fucking house. ~ Robert Harris

Before you deride the "mainstream media," note that it is no longer the mainstream. It is derision that is mainstream and easy, and actual journalism that is edgy and difficult. So try for yourself to write a proper article, involving work in the real world: traveling, interviewing, maintaining relationships with sources, researching in written records, verifying everything, writing and revising drafts, all on a tight and unforgiving schedule. ~ Timothy Snyder

The excitement for me lies not so much in interviewing the hard-to-get famous person, but the person whom you are about to discover. You know, like maybe the character actors who are just coming into their own and you're realizing how great they are. ~ Terry Gross

Interviewing people is pretty natural for me. ~ Nina Blackwood

Enough people write about me every day without even interviewing me. ~ Meryl Streep

As
calmly as she could, she turned away from the cop who was interviewing her and walked toward him.
He grabbed her fast enough, hard enough to knock the breath out of her. Nothing had ever felt so
safe. "I was hoping you'd come. I was really hoping."
"Did you get banged up any? ~ Nora Roberts

When I'm interviewing somebody I don't work from prepared questions. ~ William Shatner

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. ~ Oprah Winfrey

Working as a journalist, I was always tempted to lie. I felt I could do dialogue better than the person I was interviewing. I felt I could lie better than Nixon and be more concise than some random person I was covering. ~ Tim O'Brien

By interviewing at least one veteran, you can preserve memories that otherwise might be lost. My uncle was a downed fighter pilot and P.O.W. in World War II, and I am looking forward to recording his story for inclusion in the project. ~ Spencer Bachus

Action is the spark that ignites potential. ~ John Long

The first time he saw her, he formed an impression that did not
change for many years: She was a dour, bookish, geeky type who dressed like she
was interviewing for a job as an accountant at a funeral parlor. At the same
time, she had a flamethrower tongue that she would turn on people at the oddest
times, usually in some grandiose, earth-scorching retaliation for a slight or
breach of etiquette that none of the other freshmen had even perceived. It
wasn't until a number of years later, when they both wound up working at Black
Sun Systems, Inc., that he put the other half of the equation together. At the
time, both of them were working on avatars. He was working on bodies, she was
working on faces. She was the face department, because nobody thought that
faces were all that important -- they were just flesh-toned busts on top of the
avatars. She was just in the process of proving them all desperately wrong.
But at this phase, the all-male society of bit-heads that made up the power
structure of Black Sun Systems said that the face problem was trivial and
superficial. It was, of course, nothing more than sexism, the especially
virulent type espoused by male techies who sincerely believe that they are too
smart to be sexists.
That first impression, back at the age of seventeen, was nothing more than that
-- the gut reaction of a post-adolescent Army brat who had been on his own for
ab ~ Neal Stephenson

Most of the people interviewing me are far more square than me. I think it's the ET thing. I'm sitting there, my hair is combed, and I'm in a suit. ~ John Tesh

I became the storyteller of South Side Chicago. I used an old Kiwi liquid shoe polish as a microphone. I'd go around the house interviewing everybody, telling stupid jokes, doing voices. I mimicked Sidney Poitier, Sammy Davis Jr., people on 'Laugh-In,' Flip Wilson. ~ Bernie Mac

Most of life is offline, and I think it always will be; eating and aching and sleeping and loving happen in the body. But it's not impossible to imagine losing my appetite for those things; they aren't always easy, and they take so much time. In twenty years I'd be interviewing air and water and heat just to remember they mattered. ~ Miranda July

When interviewing for any job, you of course want to dress appropriately for the position, but you also want to stay true to who you are. ~ Nina Garcia

Liverpool's grand opera also gave us some light comedy - on hearing the news that the house of goalkeeper Pepe Reina was burgled, and his Porsche stolen, while he was heroically saving penalties at Anfield, fans took a typically witty line: police were said to be interviewing a man from the West London area, a certain Frank Lampard, whose whereabouts on Tuesday between 7.45pm and 10.15pm are unknown. Indeed. ~ Declan Lynch

I never drove a car. I'm hopeless that way. I press the wrong buttons on the tape recorder. But if the person I'm interviewing helps me out, that person feels needed. People need to feel needed. ~ Studs Terkel

Interviewing politicians and movie stars, you know what you'll get. I like the people-stories better. ~ Shepard Smith

Until I was twenty I was sure there was a being who could see everything I did and who didn't like most of it. He seemed to care about minute aspects of my life, like on what day of the week I ate a piece of meat. And yet, he let earthquakes and mudslides take out whole communities, apparently ignoring the saints among them who ate their meat on the assigned days. Eventually, I realized that I didn't believe there was such a being. It didn't seem reasonable. And I assumed that I was an atheist.

As I understood the word, it meant that I was someone who didn't believe in a God; I was without a God. I didn't broadcast this in public because I noticed that people who do believe in a god get upset to hear that others don't. (Why this is so is one of the most pressing of human questions, and I wish a few of the bright people in this conversation would try to answer it through research.)

But, slowly I realized that in the popular mind the word atheist was coming to mean something more - a statement that there couldn't be a God. God was, in this formulation, not possible, and this was something that could be proved. But I had been changed by eleven years of interviewing six or seven hundred scientists around the world on the television program Scientific American Frontiers. And that change was reflected in how I would now identify myself.

The most striking thing about the scientists I met was their complete dedication to evidence. It reminded me of th ~ Alan Alda

I once wrote a book on women in science. I realized when I was interviewing them that they were the equivalent of writers, or anyone else who tries to make art out of life. Through science they had reached the expressive. ~ Vivian Gornick

In 2009, I served as AARP's Ambassador of Caregiving. With a producer and cameraman, I traveled the country for months, interviewing hundreds of caregivers. ~ Gail Sheehy

Job-interviewing is just a skill. Like any skill, some people have more of a predisposition for it than others. ~ Dale Dauten

I've always believed that culture is defined and created from the top down, but it comes to life from the bottom up. This meant that I had to build our culture by working with the leadership group (i.e., the owner, general manager, and executives), the coaching staff, and the football team. To strengthen the culture among the leadership group, it was important to reiterate to the owner, team president, and general manager the shared beliefs, values, and expectations that we had discussed in depth when I was interviewing for the head coaching position. It was important to have collaborative conversations on a regular basis to discuss the changes we were making and why we were making them. ~ Jon Gordon

Professors typically spend their time in meetings about planning, policy, proposals, fund-raising, consulting, interviewing, traveling, and so forth, but spend relatively little time at their drawing boards. As a result, they lose touch with the substance of their rapidly developing subject. They lose the ability to design; they lose sight of what is essential; and they resign themselves to teach academically challenging puzzles. ~ Niklaus Wirth

And again the news offered no news: On CNN, a rerun of Larry King interviewing the widowed and the suffering. On CNN2, a rerun of Larry King interviewing a fatherless son. On CNN3, a rerun of Flight 11 flying toward the first tower, in slow motion. On CNN4, a rerun of the tower collapsing, in slow motion, and again the towers fell, again people jumped and died. On CNN5, a rerun of Larry King interviewing a motherless daughter, a daughterless father, interviewing the motherless, fatherless, wifeless, husbandless, childless, shameless
disgusted, Bill pressed POWER and beheaded King, exiled CNN, and the world went dark. They sat relieved in the silence and dark. Not much road traffic now, but somewhere in the distant overhead the honk and flap of southbound geese, instinct bound, in vees for victory. The turkey was still on the table; the sides were still out. Let all who are hungry come and eat. Let all who are tired come home. ~ Pearl Abraham

Being prepared and sharing your knowledge earns the confidence of those who are interviewing you, depend on your expertise, or seek you out for solutions, answers, or presentations. ~ Susan C. Young

I was fortunate that I was at newspapers for eight years, where I wrote at least five or six stories every week. You get used to interviewing lots of different people about a lot of different things. And they aren't things you know about until you do the story. ~ Chuck Klosterman

When you're interviewing someone, you're in control. When you're being interviewed, you think you're in control, but you're not. ~ Barbara Walters

When I'm interviewing someone, I want to make sure that he thought enough to take care of himself - to dress appropriately and to groom himself properly. ~ Bill Rancic

I would go to radio stations and they were supposed to be interviewing me and playing my record and they would say, We're playing too many women right now, we can't play your record. ~ Kristin Hersh

I used to say that interviewing others was perhaps the way I could stop talking and start listening. It's a kind of enforced silence. ~ Errol Morris

I always spend time exploring the customs and attitudes of the countries I'm using for locations, and interviewing the people who live there. I've visited over 90 countries thus far. ~ Sidney Sheldon

No longer do companies study consumers' psyches only by asking people what they think about technology and how they use it. Now they conduct observational research, dispatching anthropologists to employ their ethnographic skills by interviewing, watching and videotaping consumers in their natural habitats. ~ Katie Hafner

I wasn't supposed to be walking with Mark Zuckerberg. I wasn't supposed to be interviewing Romney's sons. Why was I doing it? Because I wanted to survive. I wanted to live. I wanted to earn what it means to be an American. ~ Jose Antonio Vargas

Why is it so important to have fun? Because if you love your work (or your activism or your family time), then you'll want to do more of it. You'll think about it before you go to sleep and as soon as you wake up; your mind is always in gear. When you're that engaged, you'll run circles around other people even if they are more naturally talented. From what we've seen personally, the best predictor of success among young economists and journalists is whether they absolutely love what they do. If they approach their job like - well, a job - they aren't likely to thrive. But if they've somehow convinced themselves that running regressions or interviewing strangers is the funnest thing in the world, you know they have a shot. ~ Steven D. Levitt

When you are interviewing refugees, each person you talk to has a different story that could come from a horror movie. So many people talk about seeing their families get murdered before their eyes. Then I go to Central Park, and people are talking about their third divorce and paying tuition. ~ Brandon Stanton

I love researching, I love interviewing. ~ Quiara Alegria Hudes

I was just not cut out to be an American journalist. In England, I could phone my editor and say 'Do you want an interview with X?' and get an immediate yes or no. At Vanity Fair I had to 'pitch ideas' and then go through layers of editors, all of whom asked what my 'angle' was going to be. I have always deeply hated and resented this question. If you have an angle on someone, it means you have already decided what to write before you meet, so you really might as well not bother interviewing them (126). ~ Lynn Barber

There is nothing more tedious about interviewing politicians. It would have been better if I'd been sent to cover some crime or another. Murderers are much more real. ~ Paulo Coelho

Throughout the lead-up to the war, CNN worked hard to air all sides of the story. We had a regular segment called Voices of Dissent in which we spent time covering antiwar protests and interviewing those who were opposed to the war with Iraq. ~ Jim Walton

behaviors; clinical interviewing; informed decision making; listening ~ John L. Coulehan

Most / of those he interviewed for the science project had to admit they did not hear the cries of the roses / being burned alive in the noonday sun. Like horses, Geryon would say helpfully, / like horses in war. No, they shook their heads./ Why is grass called blades? he asked them. Isn't it because of the clicking? / They stared at him. You should be / interviewing roses not people, said the science teacher. Geryon liked this idea. / The last page of his project / was a photograph of his mother's rosebush under the kitchen window. / Four od the roses were on fire. / They stood up straight and pure on the stalk, gripping the dark like prophets / and howling colossal intimacies / from the back of their fused throats. ~ Anne Carson

I prepared to explore it as I had done the others; but no sooner had I entered the lodge than my fire failed me, leaving me in total darkness.

Handing it out to the doctor to be relighted, I began feeling my way about the interior of the lodge. I had almost made the circuit when my hand came in contact with a human foot; at the same time a voice unmistakably Indian, and which evidently came from the owner of the foot, convinced me that I was not alone.

I would have gladly placed myself on the outside of the lodge and there matured plus for interviewing its occupant; but, unfortunately, to reach the entrance of the lodge, I must either pass over or around the owner of the before-mentioned foot and voice.

Could I have been convinced that among its other possessions there was neither tomahawk nor scalping-knife, pistol nor war club, or any similar article of the noble red man's toilet, I would have risked an attempt to escape through the low narrow opening of the lodge; but who ever saw an Indian without one or all of these interesting trinkets?

Had I made the attempt, I should have expected to encounter either the keen edge of the scalping-knife or the blow of the tomahawk and to have engaged in a questionable struggle for life. This would not do.

I crouched in silence for a few moments, hoping the doctor would return with the lighted fire. I need not say that each succeeding moment spent in the darkness of that lodge se ~ George Armstrong Custer

Everyone's fascinated by twins - the bond between them, the way they communicate - "
"He yells 'Hey, stupid!' That's how Charlie communicates with me."
"Very funny. Come on, it's a great idea! And since I know you both so well, I won't feel weird interviewing you. It can be an in-depth, sensitive, soul-searching kind of thing."
"Charlie has no depth." Frowning, Emma considered the matter, then shook her head. "The soul part I'm not so sure about, but you can definitely rule out sensitive. ~ Richie Tankersley Cusick

McLarney laughs, then leaps into the parable of Snot Boogie, who joined the neighborhood crap game, waited for the pot to thicken, then grabbed the cash and bolted down the street only to be shot dead by one of the irate players.
"So we're interviewing the witnesses down at the office and they're saying how Snot Boogie would always join the crap game, then run away with the pot, and that they'd finally gotten sick of it ... "
Dave Brown drives in silence, barely tracking this historical digression.
"And I asked one of them, you know, I asked him why they even let Snot Boogie into the game if he always tried to run away with the money."
McLarney pauses for effect.
"And?" asks Brown.
"He just looked at me real bizarre," says McLarney. "And then he says, 'you gotta let him play ... This is America ~ David Simon

My first Hip Hop concert was at the Apollo at the age of 12. Southpaw's father was interviewing Queen Latifah and Treach as well as many others. The place was so packed no one could move but I got to be backstage with the video equipment and so I saw the show from a great place. ~ Immortal Technique

Weight is just not a hot button. In fact, during my life, it probably should have been on my radar screen a bit more. I look back at work photos and am shocked. Was I eating the people I was interviewing?! Good Lord, I was big. ~ Hoda Kotb

The mortician interviewing the corpses ~ Eugene McCarthy

This week I was watching the Rachel Maddow Show (you'd love her: she's funny and brilliant and just happens to be a stunning butch), and she was interviewing the outgoing attorney general, Loretta Lynch, about the country's post election future. The entire show was like a burst of hope so bright I almost had to put on sunglasses. The African American attorney general, prim and plump, sat perched on a barstool talking to a white butch lesbian who has her own national television news show! The event was being recorded in the Stonewall Inn, the site of one of the first places where queer people fought back against police violence! (I was so nervous about being a lesbian in 1969, I hid the tiny newspaper clipping from you.) Simply that the interview was happening made me remember that there are people in the world who are not such egotistical, political careerists as to believe that human rights don't matter. Then, as if just showing up wasn't enough, Attorney General Lynch spoke a truth that is hard to remember from our short-lived perspective: "History is bigger than one turn of the electoral wheel." During your eighty-eight years on this plane, you saw numerous turns of the wheel, and many of them did not land on a prize. Still, toward the end of your life, you took me in and bestowed not just a roof and clothes and food but the gift of your history and the knowledge that we find hope inside ourselves. ~ Jewelle L. Gómez