Richard Ben Cramer
Few men try for best ever, and Ted Williams is one of those.
At some point... Israel ground away, or gave away, her birthright of loyalty from the West.
When there are fewer and fewer publishers of scale, it's just not good for authors.
At every step in his life, DiMaggio was what New Yorkers wanted in a hero.
DiMaggio was never a rube. He was very smart and very urban. Coming out of the Great Depression, he was the immigrant boy who made it big. Coming back from World War II, he had all the wealth and power that New York aspired to. When New York saw itself as the center of the world, he was its paragon of class.
The expectations for a nonfiction writer are awful high.
When you're working on a project that's going to take six years, you're weird from the jump.
I had every stress-related illness you can get.
You can say you're going to take a vacation, and you can even take the time, but you might as well not, because the book is still sitting in your head.
Certainly no man could be such an irredeemable 'schlub' as the American press portrays its losers.
This book-promotion stuff is like a political campaign. You work your butt off, and at the end of the day, you can't tell if it's made a damned bit of difference.
I'm just an old storyteller, and I always wanted to know, what the hell were these candidates really like?
We're still in the ditch, and the Gennifer Flowers story about Bill Clinton says it all. A tabloid fired several bullets into the air, and the rest of the herd began to stampede.
I used to think that the image of the press in the 1940s - a bunch of guys in hats screaming on the courthouse steps - was all baloney. I used to say, 'I know reporters. We're not like that.' But we are.
We strove for more than 60 years to give Joe DiMaggio the hero's life. From his debut at Yankee Stadium in 1936 until his death in 1999, DiMaggio was, at every turn, one man we could look at who made us feel good.
People feel overloaded, that politics has become kind of a public utility: hot- and cold-running politics any time of the day or night.
The whole point of Israel was to create a place where Jews could live the best life - and liveliest - in accordance with their values.
Losing the presidency is not like losing any other office. More than any other office, it's a vote about you as a whole human being.
After the presidency, there's nowhere else to go in politics.
The average-guy routine works only so much, and then people begin to want something more.
When your friend causes you trouble, a president gets rid of those friends.
There is not often much policy discussion with the Bushes. There isn't much introspection. Several generations of Bush men could pass by in which the great questions of humankind will go undiscussed.
What good was being the king of the rackets in Newark, N.J., if you couldn't have DiMaggio at your dinner table?
People think of DiMaggio as the exemplar of a 'golden age,' and in some ways, he was. But in the most fundamental ways, he was really the first modern athletic superstar because, number one, he ushered in the era of big money; and number two, he never did anything except that - he never really took another job in another industry.
He was J. DiMaggio, and that was his business. He always was served and hosted - he was America's guest. And I really I don't think we would have the athletes that we have today and the social system in which they live without DiMaggio and what he did.
I was with the mujaheddin, the rebels, and they were fighting against the Russians, and they would bring me along. Some of the adventures, when I look back at them now, it's a wonder I'm still around.
I think the story of DiMaggio was alluring precisely for its impossibility.
The first time I met Alex Rodriguez, he was in the fight of his life. He was the guy who was supposed to have everything - good looks, good health, good habits - all the talent in the world and most of the money.
Don't be the schmuck on the other side of the table. Don't get an interview with the guy. Be in the room with him while he's being interviewed by someone else.
Even if you had the wherewithal to embarrass a reporter, there was no mechanism to do it. And in most cases, you might as well save your breath because the reporter had no shame anyway.
If you're following candidates in a campaign, you get on their plane, and what they're generally doing is they're dividing the cost of that charter flight by the number of reporters they're carrying aboard. In effect, the press is buying them that campaign flight.
I'm enough of a patriot to think that the American public makes good choices.
It's very hard to imagine anybody being president when the stuff that's written about them is empty of who they are.
TV is set up to be just a shout fest: Is this good for Republicans or bad for Republicans; is this good for Cain or bad for Cain... tell me something that I need to know.
He's made a business out of being Joe DiMaggio. To remain Joe DiMaggio, you better not have too much known. He's right. The closer you get, the more explosively bad stuff you find.
It's not fit work for an adult just dragging idols off the shelf. It's too easy.
I'm out there to clean the plate. Once they've read what I've written on a subject, I want them to think, 'That's it!' I think the highest aspiration people in our trade can have is that once they've written a story, nobody will ever try it again.Collection: Writing
It's like a drug, the feeling you could make a difference.Collection: Differences