35 Quotes by George Plimpton

My favorite monologue in the book is Kate Harrington's story of her relationship with Truman.

He was interviewed in the early '60s by a young novelist, Pati Hill.

It is also one of the pleasures of oral biography, in that the reader, rather than editor, is jury.

Writing is a very lonely business and when you come to a book fair and you sit at a table and people come up to you with books that they've had in their library for many years and they think it's been somewhat enhanced by a signature, it's always a pleasure.

I was told just today that 60,000 or 70,000 people listen to this (Audible.com site), which on personal computers strikes me as an extraordinary number, ... Maybe with this 'Pet Peeves' book, it'll be 150,000.

I think people are aware of how varied and interesting his life was-always at the center of things-as well as aspects of his decline.

That is one of the problems with oral biography, in that many different points of view are offered: contradictions, refutations, and so on.

They did not specify that I had to run the race from the beginning, ... about a block and a half from the finish - and I entered it immediately behind the fellow who was leading the race. He looked over his shoulder and there I was, fresh as a daisy. This poor man put on a desperate sprint, which is quite a feat if you've run 26 miles, and he managed to cross the finish line before I did, which gives you some sense of my speed.

At the base of it was the urge, if you wanted to play football, to knock someone down, that was what the sport was all about, the will to win closely linked with contact.