I dont think I ever wanted to be a journalist - I was more interested in what comes from being a journalist.
I don't think I ever wanted to be a journalist - I was more interested in what comes from being a journalist.
I think we're all actors. There's this friend of mine who's a great drummer, and he said, "I never thought I'd be a drummer, but I got really good at it. I always feel like I'm an actor playing the drums." His real calling was that he was going to be a magician. That's what he felt like he wanted to do. If you decide to act like a journalist, you'll probably be a better journalist than just being a journalist. What you're doing is, you're taking the executive role and stepping outside yourself so that you're able to make more objective decisions.
When I went in, my editor said, 'I hope you don't think you're a writer.' And I said, 'I hope you don't think I'm a journalist.' And, uh, turned out we were both right.
When I went in, my editor said, ‘I hope you don’t think you’re a writer.’ And I said, ‘I hope you don’t think I’m a journalist.’ And, uh, turned out we were both right.
I never really wanted to be a journalist, honestly. I always wanted to be a writer, and I thought the only way to apply that interest was with journalism - when you're young and you want to be a writer, it seems like the most practical thing to do with those types of ambitions.
If I wasn't a writer/director, I would be an investigative journalist. There's something about being an undercover journalist. I mean, that's freakin' cool!
I'd go for "really great writer." Although I don't think I am. I know I have a style which is recognizable. I think you can see Terry Pratchett in every book. I like doing it. I was once a journalist. And I think of myself as a journalist, and that's it.
I am old enough to think the word 'journalist' is not all that noble a designation. Journalist - that record keeper, quote taker and processor of press releases - was, in the world of letters I grew up in, a lower-down job. To be a writer - once the ambition of every journalist - was to be the greater truth teller.
At an early school, when I was about 5, they asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. Everyone said silly things, and I said I wanted to be an actress. So that was what I wanted to be, but what I was, of course, was a writer.
The one thing that shaped my life was when I was 15 or 16: I knew I wanted to be a journalist. And not just a journalist, but a journalist in the Middle East, and to go back to the Arab world and try to understand what it meant to be Lebanese.
So you actually need spectacles,” Leo finally said. “Of course I do,” Marks said crossly. “Why would I wear spectacles if I didn’t need them?” “I thought they might be part of your disguise.” “My disguise?” “Yes, Marks, disguise. A noun describing a means of concealing someone’s identity. Often used by clowns and spies. And now apparently governesses. Good God, can anything be ordinary for my family?
I always wanted to be a scientist. I don't really have any writer friends. The process of being a writer is much more interior than being a scientist, because science is so reactionary. I think that all research scientists think of themselves as belonging to a grand tradition, building on work that has been worked on since the very beginning of science itself. Whereas I'm not sure writers think of themselves in the same way.
If you're a journalist - and I think, on some level, I'm a journalist, and proud to be a journalist, or a documentarian, however you want to describe it - part of what I do has to be the pursuit of the truth.
Before acting, I wanted to become a journalist. I also toyed with the idea of being a chef - but that's only when people asked me what I wanted to be. In fact, I always used to say I wanted to be an actor, but I didn't ever believe that I was good enough to be come one.
I don't believe a poet has a better hold on truth or morality than a fiction writer has. And I don't think a fiction writer has anything over a journalist. It's all about the good word, properly inserted.