Author

When in my writing lair, I have no access to the Web. Otherwise, I'm like one of those lab rats on too much sugar. To compile my Google searches would be to see my sludgy, allusive brain at work.

From Michael Paterniti

For a rapper as well-known as Drake, there remains an essential element of mystery about him. For one so open, there's a distance, and he prefers it that way. But then there's something beneath the exterior that reveals itself with urgency in conversation: Drake's raw ambition.

From Michael Paterniti

The pleasure of hanging with Drake is that there isn't a question he won't try to answer openly and honestly, shifting easily and unselfconsciously between talk of the rap game, money, family, and love.

From Michael Paterniti

There's Jay-Z, who morphs a certain street hustler's cool and indifference into CEO extravagance. But for all his prominence, Jay-Z hasn't written a lot of crossover hits.

From Michael Paterniti

Drake's home is its own fantasia, a single-level ranch that sprawls in various wings over 7,500 square feet, from the game room to the gym to Drake's master bedroom with Jacuzzi. The pool is like a scene out of Waterworld, with a bar inside a grotto, waterfalls, and a slide that drops thirty feet through the rock.

From Michael Paterniti

Going to Cambodia to cover the genocide trials, I did read a lot about the Khmer Rouge; I read a lot about the country and its history.

From Michael Paterniti

I love when stories have something a little magical in them, and there's wonder and curiosity. Somewhere there are people living these improbable stories, and our job is to go out and find them and bring them to the page. And so, the more surprising, the more uplifting, the more sort of even inspiring a story is, I find myself gripped by those.

From Michael Paterniti

I do think that narrative, long-form nonfiction is the perfect form because it's rooted in something very real, but we're also, you know, completely spiritual, emotional creatures driven by all sorts of desires and needs.

From Michael Paterniti

I remember doing 'The Long Fall of One-Eleven Heavy,' and I'd been reporting that story for a long time; I had a lot of good facts, but I had no story. I didn't know what the story was.

From Michael Paterniti

The older we get, the more we desire to reclaim our body at 25; we'll take our face at 35, the elasticity of our mind at its most powerful, to return ourselves somehow to our most vital moment of rigor and protean creation.

From Michael Paterniti

Michael Paterniti

Notable Quotes

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