“When I went to Spain, right after the Pulitzer I encountered Spanish journalists who are very different from American journalists. One way is that they are all very political. They want their writers to be very political. The first journalist that I met when I was there asked "Are you going to use your prize for political purposes?" I said, "Good Lord, no, I wouldn’t trade on it—I’m a professional liar. I tell stories. I make things up." They were appalled. They made it very clear to me that that was the wrong answer and that it was further evidence of what was wrong with American authors and Americans, in general, was that we were insular. Which we are. And that we were not bearing our responsibilities in the world. And that fame that is ours has been wasted on people like us because we won’t use it for good purposes. American writers are probably far more insular than we should be, nevertheless I am very much of the other persuasion. That people should not talk about what they don’t know.”

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "When I went to Spain, right after the Pulitzer I encountered Spanish journalists who are very different from American j…" by Richard Russo?
Richard Russo photo
Richard Russo 19
American novelist, short story writer and screenwriter 1949

Related quotes

Neil Gaiman photo
Frank Lampard photo

“I can only answer that I tried to tell the truth and, if not be objective, at least be fair; history is not served when reporters prize trepidation and propriety over the robust journalistic duty to tell the whole story.”

Randy Shilts (1951–1994) American journalist

The Life and Times of Harvey Milk Randy Shilts, Chronicler of AIDS Epidemic, Dies at 42; Journalism: Author of 'And the Band Played On' is credited with awakening nation to the health crisis http://articles.latimes.com/1994-02-18/news/mn-24467_1_randy-shilts
Quote

Malcolm Gladwell photo
Learned Hand photo

“We believe, and I think properly, that when the men who met in 1787 to make our Constitution they made the best political document ever made; but, remember, they did so very largely because they were great compromisers.”

Learned Hand (1872–1961) American legal scholar, Court of Appeals judge

Testimony before the United States Congress, Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, hearing on the Establishment of a Commission on Ethics in Government (1951).
Extra-judicial writings

Barack Obama photo

“I want to be very clear here -- a politics that’s based solely on tribe and ethnicity is a politics that's doomed to tear a country apart.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Remarks to the Kenyan People (July 2015)

José Saramago photo

“I believe that I've been asked all possible questions. I, myself, if I were a journalist, would not know what to ask me.”

José Saramago (1922–2010) Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature

Interview with "O Globo", July 2009.

Tom Clancy photo
Kenneth Arrow photo

“I was a very polite person, though. Paul Samuelson tells these stories how he used to correct his professors. I assume that’s true. But I wasn’t that type.”

Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017) American economist

in Karen Ilse Horn (ed.) Roads to Wisdom, Conversations With Ten Nobel Laureates in Economics (2009)
New millennium

Related topics