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" The way we live history is not the way historians tell history. Our lives are messy and chaotic and bewildering. "

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" I never want to make people upset, but sometimes we may. When I interview people, I try to make it clear that our obligation is to what we uncover and to telling that story and to presenting it fairly and making sure everyone has a say. "

" It took me a long time to be able to write for the 'New Yorker,' and for me, that has been the best job. I live a very conventional life, but reporting for the magazine has allowed me to do things I would never otherwise do, such as investigating a criminal conspiracy in Guatemala or trekking through the Amazon looking for a lost city. "

" There are certain stories that remind you of the moral purpose that originally drew you to become a reporter. "

" After a traumatic event, people tend to store a series of memories and arrange them into a meaningful narrative. They remember exactly where they were and to whom they were talking. "

" Books were a huge part of my childhood growing up. We would go on vacation, and my mom was always carting manuscripts around. "

" If I can find the right idea, I can get out of the way and do a good story. "

" Each person, as they live through history, can't see it all. "

" The giant squid is the perfect embodiment of a sea monster: it is huge, it has tentacles, it has big eyes, and it is absolutely frightening-looking. But, most important, it is real. Unlike the Loch Ness monster, we know it's out there. "

" You think of the rainforest as this incredibly abundant place of fauna and animals and flora. This great, rich wilderness. And yet it is such a biological battlefield in which everything is competing. "

" The outlaw, in the American imagination, is a subject of romance - a 'good' bad man, he is typically a master of escape, a crack shot, a ladies' man. "

" Baseball, of course, has long been played under the burden of metaphor. More so than basketball or football, it is supposed to represent something larger than itself. "

" The Osage have this lovely phrase: 'Travelers in the Mist.' It was the term for part of an Osage clan that would take the lead whenever the tribe was venturing into unfamiliar realms. And, in a way, we are all travelers in the mist. The challenge is that, as writers, we sometimes want to ignore this murkiness, or we want to write around it. "

" Most of Gingrich's moderate positions are rooted in a realpolitik that transcends ideology. "

" Crime stories are often sensationalized. They can provoke lower standards. "

" I often say that the best way to find a story is a one-inch brief in a local newspaper. "

" I guess if I had to pick one interest that is unique, it would be giant squids - I'm disturbingly fascinated by them and even wrote a story about the hunt for them. "

" I don't normally do pure historical work. "

" If someone told me I had to stop writing stories, that would be the end of me. "

" I often feel that with a crime story, the moral standards have to be higher. You're deal with real victims and with real consequences. "

" We are a country of laws. When you take that away, the consequences are enormous. "

" Barry Bonds was still young when his father's fall began. Although Bobby still continued to put up good numbers year after year, he never lived up to expectations. "

" To be honest, I used to always procrastinate when I write. I mean, I love writing, but I hate it. "

" I don't hunt, I don't camp, and I get lost on my subway to work here in Times Square! "

" My mother doesn't need much sleep. At any hour of the night, you'd wake up, and she'd be reading. She'd read five, six books a week. When we went on sailing trips, she'd bring a suitcaseful for the week. Even then, her office would have to send more. "

" You want the story to be about something, have some deeper meaning, but there is also an emotional, almost instinctual, element, which is, does this story seize some part of you and compel you to get to the bottom of it? "

" I tried a few grad school programs because I didn't know how to make it... Eventually, I was desperate for a job, and there was a new newspaper opening up in Washington, D.C., called 'The Hill.' Even though my interest in politics wasn't huge, they gave me a job as a copy editor. "

" I think you get into trouble as an author and a journalist when, rather than owning the gaps, you try to elide them. "

" Because I read so much nonfiction for work, I enjoy fiction most, especially detective novels and mysteries that keep me awake at night. "

" Early on, I tried fiction, but I wasn't very good at it. I wrote a very bad novel that is thankfully sitting in a drawer somewhere. "

" I've done a lot of stories over the years, and sometimes there are larks, and they're fun, and you kind of move on. "