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I was not very good at newspaper reporting. I'm just not quick enough, and I always tend to tell things as stories.
David Grann -
I don't normally do pure historical work.
David Grann
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You have to go where the truth takes you, and that doesn't always take you in exactly the same place where people you speak to might want,or suspects may want. That's your ultimate obligation.
David Grann -
It was a very circuitous path. It was not very linear - I floundered about for many years.
David Grann -
I've done a lot of stories over the years, and sometimes there are larks, and they're fun, and you kind of move on.
David Grann -
There was a part of me that always wanted to be an editor.
David Grann -
The outlaw, in the American imagination, is a subject of romance - a 'good' bad man, he is typically a master of escape, a crack shot, a ladies' man.
David Grann -
Books were a huge part of my childhood growing up. We would go on vacation, and my mom was always carting manuscripts around.
David Grann
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A lot of the stories I write about have an element of mystery. They're crime stories or conspiracy stories or quests. They do have built into them revelations and twists. But the revelations, to me, come from seeing history as it's unfolding, or life as it's unfolding.
David Grann -
To be honest, I used to always procrastinate when I write. I mean, I love writing, but I hate it.
David Grann -
We are a country of laws. When you take that away, the consequences are enormous.
David Grann -
I never want to make people upset, but sometimes we may. When I interview people, I try to make it clear that our obligation is to what we uncover and to telling that story and to presenting it fairly and making sure everyone has a say.
David Grann -
The giant squid is the perfect embodiment of a sea monster: it is huge, it has tentacles, it has big eyes, and it is absolutely frightening-looking. But, most important, it is real. Unlike the Loch Ness monster, we know it's out there.
David Grann -
One of the nice things about 'The New Yorker' is they let you write stories that sometimes end up almost half a book.
David Grann
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I covered Congress, and everyone always wanted me to be a political reporter.
David Grann -
There are certain stories that remind you of the moral purpose that originally drew you to become a reporter.
David Grann -
Like many people, I kicked around, struggled to become a writer, finally got my first full-time job around 27, 28, at 'The Hill' newspaper. They hired me as a copy editor, which was kind of funny because I'm semi-blind because I have an eye disorder.
David Grann -
Because many squid have brain nerve fibres that are hundreds of times thicker than those of humans, neuroscientists have long used them for research. These nerve fibres have led to so many breakthroughs in the study of neurons that many scientists joke that the squid should receive a Nobel Prize.
David Grann -
I grew up around writers, and there was always a romance to them. They were charming. They would tell their stories of what they were working on, over the table.
David Grann -
You think of the rainforest as this incredibly abundant place of fauna and animals and flora. This great, rich wilderness. And yet it is such a biological battlefield in which everything is competing.
David Grann
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The romantic notion of the clubhouse as a traveling fraternity of working-class heroes - the boys of summer - is perhaps the most potent in all of baseball.
David Grann -
For a while, when I got out of college, I tried to write fiction. I'd grown up more around novelists, and my initial attraction was to write fiction. But I was much less suited for it. I always struggled to figure out what people were saying or doing in a particular moment.
David Grann -
Crime stories are often sensationalized. They can provoke lower standards.
David Grann -
After a traumatic event, people tend to store a series of memories and arrange them into a meaningful narrative. They remember exactly where they were and to whom they were talking.
David Grann