I have a strong work ethic, yet I'm incredibly lazy as well. The problem with being a writer is that everything you do can be called research. Sitting in the pub is research. Reading the newspaper can be research.
Journalists in newspapers and in many magazines are not permitted to be subjective and tell their readers what they think. Journalists have got to follow a very strict formulaic line, and here we come, these non-fiction writers, these former journalists who are using all the techniques that journalists are pretty much not allowed to use.
Let us consider the polarity of love and hate.... Now, clinical observation shows not only that love is with unexpected regularityaccompanied by hate (ambivalence), and not only that in human relationships hate is frequently a forerunner of love, but also that in many circumstances hate changes into love and love into hate.
Many journalists now are no more than channelers and echoers of what Orwell called the official truth. They simply cipher and transmit lies. It really grieves me that so many of my fellow journalists can be so manipulated that they become really what the French describe as functionaires, functionaries, not journalists.
Like any other person who reads a ton of books, I hate many, many books. Oh, how I hate them. I have performed dramatic readings of the books I hate. I have little hate summaries. I have hate impressions. I can act out, scene by hateful scene, some of these books. I can perform silent hate charades.
Lazy journalists, they'll read stuff and get a quote then ask the same question again hoping I'll say a similar thing; it's very tiresome.
Populists hate journalists, they hate teachers, they hate lawyers, but they tend to like rich people. There's something deeply consistent.
Too few journalists become screenwriters. I say to all the would-be screenwriters: Become journalists. And I’ll say to working journalists: Do not stay journalists. Become screenwriters.
I consider myself pretty lazy, but I look back and check out the stuff I've done, and I say, 'God, that's a lot of stuff for a lazy guy.' It's a paradox, I suppose, being both things.
Hate is just as injurious to the hater as it is to the hated. Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Many of our inner conflicts are rooted in hate. This is why the psychiatrists say, "Love or perish." Hate is too great a burden to bear.
Also, I think I'd like to see more out-of-state shows, man. As bad as I hate to say this, I'm looking forward to playing for nobody. That's what happens when you're a guy like me and you travel out to Sacramento, California.
'Say It Loud' came from many, many small battles. From, 'I hate myself, and I hate this,' to, 'I love this, and it's my favorite thing...' to, 'This is the best thing in existence.'
I don't hate journalists. You can't hate a class of people. It's wrong to say that. But I do think they're a bit like poison. Never trust them. You can't trust them as a class of people. It's their job not to be trusted.
If you consider the great journalists in history, you don't see too many objective journalists on that list.
A lot of journalists are talented enough to write a mystery novel, and I would say that most of the top-end mystery writers actually started out as reporters. But there is more to it than just the writing; there's a learning process, and most journalists aren't willing to do it.
When you're in the public eye, it allows people to see you inhumanely. There's this idea that you have to take the abuse. And when younger journalists, especially young female journalists, ask me how I handle social media, I hate myself when I have to tell them to condition themselves and develop a thick skin.