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

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" 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 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. "

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

" 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. "

" Generally the aesthetics of broadcast journalism seem to me to be incredibly primitive. "

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

" When you're working in public radio, you don't have any money to advertise. "

" Radio is more powerful the closer we mimic the way we actually speak to each other. That's why Howard Stern is such a great radio talent. People on his show are actually speaking to each other. You might not like what they're saying, but they're real conversations. "

" 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 don't own a radio. I listen to everything through apps or on my iPhone. And then I download the shows I like. Shows like 'Fresh Air', 'Radiolab', 'Snap Judgement', all those shows. "

" 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 just have a harder time, I think, feeling close to people without self consciousness. "

" I eat the same breakfast and lunch every day, both at my desk. I employ no time-saving tricks at all. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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'm just not very funny. "

" Any story that I can consider worth telling is one that you could tell in words. "

" The flakier your mission, the fiercer you have to be on the business side. "

" Grease and starch just always win over protein. In food as in so many things. Look around you, that's what our whole country is based on. It's amazing that Michael Jordan can be an iconic figure because he's basically just protein. "

" I have a pit bull. He's a rescue. He's adorable. "

" 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. "

" I'll meet listeners who tell me what a great voice I have. But I don't have a great voice for radio. My voice is the utterly normal voice, but sheer repetition has made them think it's OK. Mick Jagger once was asked, 'What makes a hit song? He said, 'Repetition.' "

" 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 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. "

" I suppose I shouldn't go around admitting I speak untruths on the radio. 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. "

" There is a kind of structure for a story that was peculiarly compelling for the radio. I thought I had invented it atom-by-atom sitting in an editing booth in Washington on M Street when I was in my 20s. Then I found out that it is one of the oldest forms of telling a story - it was the structure of a sermon. "

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

" One reason I do the live shows - and the monthly speeches at public radio stations - is to remind myself that people hear the show, that it has an audience, that it exists in the world. It's so easy to forget that. "

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