I work in a medium where I get to be totally invisible and I get great pleasure from that, being a pretty self-conscious person.

I love songs. Songs are my favorite things.

I learned that I never really know the true story of my guests' lives, that I have to content myself with knowing that when I'm interviewing somebody, I'm getting a combination of fact and truth and self-mythology and self-delusion and selective memory and faulty memory.

And the rules were so clear, you could not deviate from that all. And I think it especially damaged my sisters because there was nothing they could do to get my father's attention, to win his approval. They could not play sports. They could not do these other things. They could not be tough. They could not be macho. And so I think they suffered just from sheer neglect if nothing else.

I think the interview form works best on the radio. There are a lot of personality traits conveyed in a person's voice, the rhythm of their speech or how confident they sound.

I know that everyone who listens to radio creates you in a visual image that they need you to have. Whatever that is, I thought, let them have it. Let me be who the listener needs me to be and let me not contradict that with the reality of my photograph and risk disappointing them.

I've never seen radio as the minor leagues, where I'm just really preparing to be in the show that really counts, namely, television, which is, I think, what people often assume. I've never felt that way.