I do novels a bit backward. I look for a situation, a milieu first, and then I wait to see who walks into it.

Television reporters aren't really called reporters. They are called researchers. And that's really all they are.

The problem with fiction, it has to be plausible. That's not true with non-fiction.

don't just describe an emotion, arouse it, make them experience it, by manipulating the symbol of the emotion, and sometimes we have to come into awareness through the back door.

God, newspapers have been making up stories forever. This kind of trifling and fooling around is not a function of the New Journalism.

Frankly, these days, without a theory to go with it, I can't see a painting.

People complain about my exclamation points, but I honestly think that's the way people think. I don't think people think in essays; it's one exclamation point to another.