Because the writer must be a participant in the scene, while he's writing it — or at least taping it, or even sketching it. Or all three. Probably the closest analogy to the ideal would be a film director/producer who writes his own scripts, does his own camera work and somehow manages to film himself in action, as the protagonist or at least a main character.

I don't mean to say that I'm about to state my credo here on this page, but merely to affirm, sincerely for the first time in my life, my belief in man as an individual and independent entity. Certainly not independence in the everyday sense of the word, but pertaining to a freedom and mobility of thought that few people are able - or even have the courage - to achieve.

He wandered into the Newsroom and asked for a job the same way he’d walk into a barbershop and ask for a haircut, and with no more idea of being turned down.

I felt like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger: A man on the move, and just sick enough to be totally confident.

Good people drink good beer.

I went to the Democratic Convention as a journalist, and returned a cold-blooded revolutionary.

I would feel real trapped in this life if I didn't know I could commit suicide at any time.