Quote

I don't really read a lot of newspapers. I don't pay attention to what is being said or written about me. I've had lots of experiences in the past when I got too much into it. That sort of diverts your focus.

You will always have partial points of view, and you'll always have the story behind the story that hasn't come out yet. And any form of journalism you're involved with is going to be up against a biased viewpoint and partial knowledge.

That is the thing about being a writer; your subject matter may not stay your subject matter if you break their trust by revealing personal and editorialized information about them.

I think the key to being a journalist is getting your subject to feel comfortable enough to talk about stuff they want to talk about and the stuff they like and don't like, and still feel comfortable about it.

All I write about is what's happened to me and to people I know, and the better I know them, the more likely they are to be written about.

What happens is I speak to people outside of my circle of friends and they have already formed an opinion of me based on the things that people have written. That is the effect of journalism on my life, and sometimes it isn't very pleasant.

I've been at this for 40 years. And, as an academic, I've been content with relatively small audiences, with the thought that the audience I long for will find its way eventually to what I have written, provided that what I have written is good enough.

I was never a good journalist, because I would make things up. A lot of people frowned on that, which is why I ended up in fiction.

I don't enjoy writing newspaper articles any more than people like reading them. I'm a standup comic, not a journalist, although sometimes onstage I will say: 'What else is in the news?' Writing is work, which I'm not comfortable with.