Gay Talese Quotes (20 Quotes)

The Park Avenue of poodles and polished brass it is cab country, tip-town, glassville, a window-washer's paradise.

The reporter wrote with the hope that he would get a by-line in the Times, a testimony to his being alive on that day and all the tomorrows of microfilm.

I am writing about people who are alive in the city of New York during mid-20th-century America. And these people are like a character in a play or they are figures in a short story or a novel.

With all of the qualities of the scene-setting, the dialogue, the place and time and the time and place in which your characters move. And I want to move with the characters, move with them and describe the world in which they are living.

Better that you should take the chance of trying something that is close to your heart, you think is what you want to write, and if they do not publish it, put it in your drawer. But maybe another day will come and you will find a place to put that.

He was a sex junkie with an insatiable habit.

Most journalists are restless voyeurs who see the warts on the world, the imperfections in people and places. . . . gloom is their game, the spectacle their passion, normality their nemesis.

Restaurants are a wonderful escape for me. And are for a lot of people.

He was a true showman. He had not only the talent, but he had the ability to promote that talent. That's one reason why I think he's still relevant after all these years.

News, if unreported, has no impact. It might as well have not happened at all.

Nonfiction takes no liberty with the facts. The trouble with book publishers is that they don't have the staff or they don't want to have the staff to ensure the veracity of a writer. ... My wife is going to hate me for this, but that is what I believe.

Yes there is a little group of soccer aficionados, but I am not one of them.

Thirteen years I took on this last book.

I could come up with 50 stories that I am thinking about.

You're right in the way of some serious hurricanes, and I don't think I'd be waving those flags in God's face if I were you. ... A condition like this will bring about the destruction of your nation. It'll bring about terrorist bombs. It'll bring earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor.

Even after they had stopped modeling for Playboy and had settled down with other men to raise families of their own, Hugh Hefner still considered them his women, and in the bound volumes of his magazine he would always possess them.

People go to restaurants for so many different reasons. To court a girl, to make some deal. Maybe to talk to some lawyer about how to get an alimony settlement better than they got last week.

The real problem is what to do with the problem-solvers after the problems are solved.

For example, many colleges in their writing programs teach some of my work.

I write and rewrite and rewrite and write and like to turn in what I think is finished work.