Nat Hentoff Quotes

From 1999 on - until 2003 - I covered publishing in a weekly column for Wired.com and wrote for several other publications - altogether writing over 150 articles.

Since I make my living as a literary journalist, not a book scout, I spend inordinate amounts of time either reading or writing.

So many book sections in newspapers and magazines used to be lively and vibrant places. Now they are gone. You just don't see many reviews anymore. I can't control that, so I don't worry about it. I just try to do what I do and write books that people find every entertaining. I don't worry about the critics.

I don't know any other columnists, and I don't know what they do. I work the single! And nobody does what I do, anyway.

I do everything from home. I broadcast commentaries for CBS News Radio every day - from home, on a disk that I mail in. I write a weekly op-ed piece for the 'New York Daily News,' and any books or plays or movies that I'm crazy enough to write, I do that from home.

I find having a column a very difficult form of journalism. I'm not a natural like Tom Friedman and Anna Quindlen.

I started working for the 'NY Observer' when I was 33. After I had been writing for them for about a year and a half the editor said, 'Your stories are the most talked about stories in the 'Observer'; you should have your own column.'

For many years I was engaged in journalism, writing articles and chronicles for the daily press without ever joining the staff of any newspaper.

One good thing about leaving daily journalism was that I was no longer obliged to read all the book prize short lists.

I really like the Observer. I think I'd love to have a column with a broad reach that would enable me to do some proper reporting, but keep it on sort of a humorous level. I've always had a very happy experience writing for them.

In the fall of 1989, I was writing 600-word columns at the 'Herald.' My heart always was in long-form narrative writing, though. It's what I cut my teeth on at the 'Boston Phoenix.'

I'm a writer. I've been a journalist for my whole adult life.

I did TV for a bit, and somewhere along the line, I started writing a column for 'The Independent' newspaper in England, and now I write features for 'British Vogue.'

I write for 'Self' magazine sometimes.

I enjoy journalism; anybody does. You see the results immediately; you've got an immediate audience instead of having to wait for your audience as you do if you're writing a book, and you get a bit of money coming in, and you can see more clearly how you're paying the bills. But it's not a good position for the serious novelist to be in.

After starting as a journalist for newspapers and magazines, I began to write books and had success with a novel and four nonfiction books for young adults.

My favourite writers are columnists.

I always thought of myself as more of a columnist, but maybe a columnist who does reporting.

I had a column in high school for our school newspaper. I enjoy writing.

In my career as a writer, I preferred to avoid current events: I wrote young adult novels and book reviews and lifestyle journalism about health and parenting and other such evergreens.

In my mind, I still think - and wish - that I'm going to be a journalist or a writer. That's been my dream job my entire life.

I was trained mainly as a short story writer and that's how I started writing, but I've also become very interested in non-fiction, just because I got a couple of magazine jobs when I was really poor and needed the money and it turned out that non-fiction was much more interesting than I thought it was.

The definition of a writing career, is write a book, write another book, write another book

I was trying to write a straightforward book of sociological analysis, or at least cultural criticism, and I failed.

The people who review my books, generally, are kind of youngish culture writers who aspire to write books, or write opinion pieces about what they think of Neil Young, or why they quit watching ER or whatever. And because of that, I think there's a lot of people who write about my books with the premise of, "Why this guy? Why not me?"