Quoted: Interviews

"Journalists request interview the way beggars ask for alms, reflexisvely and nervously. Like beggars, journalists must always be prepared for a rebuff, and cannot afford to let pride prevent them from making the pitch. But it isn't pleasant for a grown man or woman to put himself or herself in the way of refusal. In my many years of doing journalism, I have never come to terms with this part of the work. I hate to ask. I hate it when they say no. And I love it when they say yes."

-Janet Malcolm, "Iphigenia in Forest Hills," The New Yorker