Interview Tactics Quotes

You can never get your message across if you're always answering their [reporter's] questions.

I've always declined to speak about things I don't think are anybody's business, and what I always get from the interviewers is, 'Well, you know, we have to ask those things.' I say, 'Well, maybe you do, but I don't have to answer them.'

I remember when I first started modeling, and I would read interviews with people. Then I would see them, and they would always say something entirely different to a crowd of people than they would say privately. I always found that really offensive.

I'm serious when I'm talking to the press because I'm always on guard because I never know what you're going to ask and I never know how you're going to construe my answer, so I try to maintain a pretty even pace when I'm speaking with the media.

Never answer a hypothetical question. It gets you beyond where you want to be.

I would say to people of a libertarian conservative position on an issue, do not do a taped interview. You're going to come out looking really bad. No matter what you say, no matter how eloquently you answer a question, your answer is not going to be what you said.

I don't find anything comes out of getting in someone's face during an interview and screaming.

When I was interviewing Hillary Clinton, I knew when I'd ask her something that she wasn't going to give me the complete truth because she would break eye contact with me.

Al McGuire talked to me I don't know how many times about dealing with the press: "You've got to be a con man." I tried that for a day or so, but it never really worked for me.

Ace of Spades says that this became clear to him in a revelation one night. He was watching Chris Matthews interview [Barack] Obama, and he didn't get one question! He didn't ask Obama one question about how Obamacare works. Every question was one degree or another: How do you feel about [John] Boehner opposing it? How do you feel about it? What will make you happy? Do you think you can get it? [It] was irrelevant!

It is harder to lie in an interview. A good interview - and it can be polite - is not a one way street like a candidate controlled ad. An interview is not programmed by the candidate and so the candidate can't be exactly sure what will be asked.

Sometimes during a conversation with a journalist - where you are answering things you never normally talk about, not even with some of your closest friends - you end up being quite confessional, and you don't think about the amplification of that. No matter how fancy these journalists are, they have editors or political leanings behind their publications, which means that, basically, they're going to shape what you've said into an article they've already written. So you have to be really careful with your words.

I was in a job interview and I opened a book and started reading. Then I said to the guy 'Let me ask you a question. If you are in a spaceship that is traveling at the speed of light, and you turn on the headlights, does anything happen?' He said 'I don't know'. I said 'I don't want your job'.

Everybody has an angle. The only time I say no to an interview is when someone says they don't have an angle. I know right away that that's not honest.

You know, there's that temptation in interviews to make yourself sound - well, to give yourself a bit of mystery.

When you interview celebrities, they're so guarded so many times, they can't reveal anything.

I don't want to lose ever. I don't want to lose at anything. I want to make weight faster than the guy that I'm fighting if we both go into the sauna at the same time. When we're doing interviews I want to have quicker wit so that I can make him feel stupid. I want to drink my water faster. And then when we get in the cage I want to beat him up. I don't think people really truly understand the extent that I go to try not to use.

The media wants a nice guy, so I can give that to them. I figured I could be myself in this interview since no one's gonna read this JV newspaper.

It's difficult to find a genuine weakness that makes you appear competent. For instance, telling your interviewer that your weakness is working so hard that you have trouble prioritizing your family life is a little too cliche and comes across as disingenuous.

In a career of trying to pry secrets, gossip, specificity and truth out of media executives, Ailes has been the most forthcoming, personal, compelling and honest I've ever dealt with.

A lot of people have this strategy where if they have a hard question they wait to ask it to the end of the interview because they think the person is going to walk out. But what they have to realize is, is that if the person walks out, they have a pretty successful story.

That's a very nice, generic-sounding question: "When did you know you were funny?" But it pre-supposes that I think I'm really hilarious. So that's kind of a loaded question.

I'd love to sit down with Barbara Walters. She's always asking people about their personal lives. I'd like to see how she likes it.

I don't think I win most interviews. For instance, with Fidel Castro, I only spoke with him one minute and three seconds. But I think he won because I couldn't get anything from him. With the former president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, it happened exactly the same thing.

You gotta do interviews every day, and they don't end well for some people, but I've never had one end where I don't shake hands at the end of the deal, including with the predators.