Quotes about the biz....

"So, is there any tread left on the tires? Or at this point would it be like throwing a hot dog down a hallway?"

-Stewie

 

great quote.

how about:

Generally speaking, the best people nowadays go into journalism, the second best into business, the rubbish into politics and the shits into law.
--Waugh

Just remember when you are at a game and you see the grass, it's the opposite side of the ball, but If you see hardwood out there it's the other end of the floor. I'm trying to help you young guys out there in this profession you've chosen. It's one or two steps above prostitution. -- Bob Knight

 

Ann Landers once had a letter from a reader who asked the following:
I'm marrying soon, and my fiancee's family hasn't met mine yet.
I have 2 brothers, but I only want them to meet one of them and I want to hide the other.
One is a child molester, the other works in TV.
Ann, what do I do about the one in TV?

 

I thought of another. It's more of a memo than a quote, but I'd gladly post it on any sports desk I work on. It's advice from David von Drehle of the Washington Post. I'm pretty sure he sent this to Roy Peter Clark right before the Sports Journalism Summit at Poynter last spring. Roy gave everyone a copy.

Why All writers should start as sports writers:

1. Because the building blocks of narrative are the building blocks of sport:
-conflict
-struggle
-testing
-honor
-teamwork
-self-reliance
-character
-set-back
-fear
-pain
-triumph
-loss

2. Because these building blocks come ready-made in sporting events, so you can stop searching for them and start working with them. As opposed to, say, school board meetings, where you can hunt all week for a narrative.

3. Because if you start out as a school board writer you will shape yourself into a writer of process stories; if you start out as as politics writer you will become a writer of cynical stories; if you start out as an investigator you will vanish down a deep hole. But if you start out as as sports writer you might turn yourself into David Remnick or John McPhee or Dan Jenkins or Sally Jenkins or Gary Smith or...

4. Because you will learn to shape stories and write them on deadline. Not 4-hour deadlines; 15-minute deadlines.

5. Because your boss doesn't care so much. You won't get yelled at for trying something new.

 

"It is better to be finished than good," Zeemer

 

I've got a good one!
"This industry is a crock of fucking shit. Talent does not seem to matter one iota to those who hire people. However, if you happen to know them, or know the publisher, or aren't a white male, or worked for a crappy paper in the same chain as the one you are applying to, we've got an opening for you. Cheers!"

And now I will continue drinking myself into a stupor, and with any luck, death.

 

One of my favorites.

 

Maybe I'm an idiot, but that Bob Knight quote makes no sense at all to me. Can somebody explain what the hell he's talking about?

 

"I can't imagine that any of us worth a dime doesn't go through a phase in which we question whether it is a fulfilled life in the toy shop. When it began to occur to me, seven or eight years into the profession, that I was beginning to look like a lifer, I did spend agonizing hours at the bar, staring into another disappointing bourbon or talking over the quandry with other sportswriters of like conflict.
"I could visualize our grandchildren coming up to me in my dotage and saying, 'Big Daddy, what did you do during Vietnam?' And I would reply that I had been at the NBA playoffs. Or, 'Poppy, where were you during the Civil Rights movement?' And I would explain that I missed that because of the Stanley Cup.
"But, finally, I resolved the issue with myself; that I am a writer, and that incidentally I write mostly about sports, and what is important is to write well, the topic be damned."

-- Frank Deford from the introduction to "The World's Tallest Midget."

 

A sportwriter asked him a question about his team playing well "on both sides of the ball" -- which makes no sense in basketball.

 

"Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?"

 

Boy, o'l Harry S. Truman sure didn't mince words.