A Quote by Walter Kirn

Truth is stranger than nonfiction. And life is too interesting to be left to journalists. People have stories, but journalists have 'takes,' and it's their takes that usually win out when the stories are too complicated or, as happens, not complicated enough.

Walter Kirn

Quote Topics

Complicated Enough Happens Interesting Journalists Left Life Life Is Nonfiction Out People Stories Stranger Takes Than Too Truth Truth Is Win

Quote Author

Walter Kirn
American - Novelist
Born: August 3, 1962

Writing stories, adopting other characters, making up fantastic stories and tales, this is a way of perhaps enhancing who I am. Writing stories takes a commonplace old life and makes it all somehow more interesting. And hopefully I can do that in a way that touches a lot of people in their lives, too.

David Small

I remember somebody saying, "I feel really bad for kids growing up around iPads right now. It's just too complicated. Life's too complicated." I think, yeah, but I remember being a kid and holding up a new piece of technology that was made in the '80s and my grandparents going, "Oh, it's too complicated." It didn't seem complicated to me.

Dan Mangan

Don't accept the excuse of complexity. A lot of people will tell you, this is too challenging, this is too complicated, yeah well I know other people simplify but that's not for me, this is a complicated business. They're wrong. You can change the world in 140 characters.

Keith Rabois

If it takes more than a sentence to explain what you are doing, it's almost always a sign that what you are doing is too complicated.

Sam Altman

Journalists are supposed to put the people first, even before themselves. Around the world and throughout history, journalists have died to get the truth out.

Michael Arrington

Too often we tell kids pleasant stories devoid of truth, and stories without truth are not good stories. Our audience deserves more from us.

Mac Barnett

It's interesting what happens when you take on a role, I think. What happens to me - without sounding too spiritual or too hippy, I guess - what happens, most of the time, you do a lot of research, and you get into the character, and at a certain moment, it's like the character takes over.

Sylvia Hoeks

In modern warfare, journalists are among the first responders, seeking out truth in the turmoil and wreckage, wherever it takes them.

Nancy Gibbs

I've gotten it down to one hour. If dinner takes me longer than an hour to prepare, then it is too complicated. So it has to be simple.

Sharon Gannon

If you consider the great journalists in history, you don't see too many objective journalists on that list.

Hunter S. Thompson

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.

John Pilger

Life is complicated, and art has the right to be complicated, too. I don't like films that simplify.

Pawel Pawlikowski

Writers and journalists tend to be simplistic about politics when, like all other areas of life, it's more complicated.

Robert Harris

A newspaper, as I'm sure you know, is a collection of supposedly true stories written down by writers who either saw them happen or talked to people who did. These writers are called journalists, and like telephone operators, butchers, ballerinas, and people who clean up after horses, journalists can sometimes make mistakes.