Gay Talese

"I think most journalists are pretty lazy, number one. A little lazy and also theyre spoon-fed information, such as the weapons of mass destruction back in 2003.... you have these people who create a package of news, develop it as a story line, a scenario, and they find, as Mailer once said about the press, that theyre like a donkey. You have to feed the donkey. The donkey every day has to eat. So [special interests] throw information at this damn animal that eats everything. Tin cans, garbage."

"If youre a child of store owners, if youre brought up in a store, you learn good manners. You have to be genial, well-liked. Youre not going to sell a customer if youre rude. You also get with different age groups, and different types of people. So be respectful. Being respectful is very important. You have to learn this."

"Sinatra with a cold is Picasso without paint, without fuel — only worse."

"He seemed now to be also the embodiment of the fully emancipated male, perhaps the only one in America, the man who can do anything he wants, anything, can do it because he has money, the energy, and no apparent guilt. ... The man who had everything, lost it, then got it back, letting nothing stand in his way, doing what few men can do."

"One way to hold a woman is not to hold her."

"Sometimes its good to be an outsider, especially as a journalist."