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" I can only control what I can control. "

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" I'm just not very funny. "

" People are generally forced to change. We don't want to change, and then something absolutely forces us to realize that what we are doing isn't working or that our picture of the world is wrong. We fail. So we change. "

" I was a semiotics major at Brown, and there's this idea that stories are better, books are better, and movies are better if they cocked you off your axis and you were completely disoriented and you'd really have to rethink everything. Nobody has that experience, actually. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" A lot of broadcasting, I think, is doing a tremendous amount of preparation and trying to act like, 'Oh, this thought is just occurring to me right now' - and speaking sincerely. "

" 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 am such a do-goody, people-pleasing kid - or I was - I don't think I've ever been fired, not even from an ice cream shop, magician for kids' parties, not even in my early jobs in radio. "

" We're Jews, my family, and Jews break down into two distinct subcultures: book Jews and money Jews. We were money Jews. "

" I'm not a go-in-for-the-kill kind of interviewer. It's a great thing to me, that kind of interviewer, but I'm not it. It doesn't play to my strengths at all. I like to interview people who are interested in telling their story and tell it as truthfully as they can. "

" 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 liked the people at Brown, while I really disliked most of the fellow students I had met at Northwestern. "

" I don't read novels, but my semiotics study influenced everything about the way I read and edit and write. "

" 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. "

" You get into this situation, performing for T.V., where you have to speak with utter sincerity. It's just like the radio. You have to say it like you mean it, even though the thing you're saying is actually planned out. "

" I'm a cliche. "

" I have been shocked at the number of people who don't watch television. "

" I think people who live in New York don't realize just how much time they spend talking about the subway. "

" Where radio is different than fiction is that even mediocre fiction needs purpose, a driving question. "

" 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 started out doing production work on promos, stuff like that. I didn't think it was cool to be working for NPR. I didn't need anything to be cool. I just wanted something to do that would be interesting. It was fun. I didn't think of it as anything else but fun. "

" When I started 'This American Life', one of the reactions I got was, 'When is the adult going to show up who will host the show?' At some point, people just got used to it. "

" In radio, you have two tools. Sound and silence. "

" The story is a machine for empathy. In contrast to logic or reason, a story is about emotion that gets staged over a sequence of dramatic moments, so you empathize with the characters without really thinking about it too much. It is a really powerful tool for imagining yourself in other people's situations. "

" I was a freelancer all through my 20s and was very slow to get good at what I did. "

" In general in New York, we all eat like kings. Insane quality, mind-blowing variety, at all price ranges. "

" One of the things I learned as a young semiotics nerd was that if you have plot moving forward, no matter how banal the facts of it, simply the fact that the plot is rolling forward makes you wonder what's going to happen next, which creates suspense. So you can control peoples' attention simply by having things move forward in a story. "

" When I was a bad writer, I would consciously imitate other NPR writers who I thought were wonderful. I suppose that everyone's artistic practice is different. But I collaborate and sometimes don't agree at all with my collaborators' opinions. It forces you to understand why you don't agree with something: what's the fight you're picking. "

" 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. "

" 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. "