Serge Schmemann Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“What Paris has done right is to make it awful to get around by car and awfully easy to get around by public transportation or by bike.”

“The lesson for the next U.S. president: Raise the taxes on fuel. A lot.”

“Back when George W. Bush was identifying his Axis of Evil, it struck me that a longer and more instructive list could be compiled of the Axis of the Humiliated (or Insulted and Injured, to borrow from Dostoevsky).”

“Like many a Yank before me, I have tried to explain to European friends that Americans actually know soccer quite well, that many of us played it in school and college, but that, well, we just don't find it quite as exciting as, say, what we call football.”

“Newspaper reporting is really storytelling. We call our articles 'stories,' and we try to tell them in a way that even people who don't know all the background can understand them.”

“We all know that much of what we hear in life is not really so. Canned laughter and 'sweetened' applause have been TV staples for decades, and all the slamming doors, breaking glass and squealing tires you hear in movies are sound effects.”

“Writing for adults and writing for young people is really not that different. As a reporter, I have always tried to write as clearly and simply as possible. I like clean, unadorned writing. So writing for a younger audience was largely an exercise in making my prose even more clear and direct, and in avoiding complicated digressions.”

“Definitely read a quality daily paper regularly, and use the Internet to check out the press around the world as often as you can.”

“Every time some spoiled European soccer millionaire complains about the blaring vuvuzelas, I want them to blare louder.”

“I guess what I'm really saying is something obvious - that there's a unique pride in watching a home team from rival turf, especially when we're not supposed to be any good.”