Jodi Kantor Quotes

When I took off from Providence, my only professional aspiration was what it had always been: I wanted to be a sportscaster. By the time I landed in the desert, I knew I would spend the rest of my life trying to be a writer.

When I started working for Rolling Stone, I became very interested in journalism and thought maybe that's what I was doing, but it wasn't.

I worked for a brief spell as a journalist, but soon I discovered that I didn't want to be a journalist - I wanted to be a historian.

I became a copy boy. Not for long. I started writing stories.

When I started working for Rolling Stone, I became very interested in journalism and thought maybe that's what I was doing, but it wasn't true. What became important was to have a point of view.

There was a period when I'd just come out of college where I'd been playing classical guitar and I suddenly realised that it wasn't what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

I started out in the journalism program, but I got kicked out. I wasn't very good at it. It wasn't where I wanted to be ultimately.

I thank God I was a reporter before I became a writer.

A lot of journalists are talented enough to write a mystery novel, and I would say that most of the top-end mystery writers actually started out as reporters. But there is more to it than just the writing; there's a learning process, and most journalists aren't willing to do it.

It took me years to realize I wanted to be in journalism.

I ended up switching over to journalism in college. A few weeks into freshman year, I realized that business school wasn't for me. And writing stories and reading and talking to people is something that I just enjoy doing, so I figured why not try to build up a post-basketball career with that.

Being a rather second-rate actress, I finally thought, 'I'd rather be a designer.' I knew I could make things look good.

I was in law school at the University of Kentucky and realized I didn't really like law school, so I took a creative writing course for something different.

I wrote to the local news guy when I was 12 years old. I said, 'What do I need to do to be you one day?'

To be completely honest, I never thought I could become a model growing up. I actually wanted to be an entertainment journalist.

There've been times when I have existential conversations with myself, and I've thought about leaving and trying to apply my education better. But ultimately it doesn't really matter. Learning how to write, learning how to write papers and structure, that's been very helpful for writing.

I didn't have the ambition to be a broadcaster. I was going to be a newspaper reporter the rest of my life, but that opportunity came along.

I wish they would teach it in schools: Give people the belief that they are going to do well. A lot of people are really talented and scared to follow their talent because you don't know where it's going.

I've definitely become more commercially successful. I think everything has changed over the past two years. People seem to take me seriously now as a songwriter for other artists and as an artist, which is funny to me because I always thought I was good. I guess that's the main change, which is pretty interesting.

Reporting in general makes me pretty nervous. But I realized: all the amazing work experiences of my life were thanks to reporting. So that forces you to go do it.

It's not about the outside, it's the inside. But dressing on the outside can help the inside.

Bagehot did what so many thousand of young graduates before him had done,--he studied for the bar; and then, having prepared himself to practise law, followed another large body of young men in deciding to abandon it.

Young women say I helped them come out of their shells.

I don't think I have changed my personality as much as I have evolved as a human. Before the name change, I was very timid, very self-conscious. Just not very confident. When I changed my name, it came from a place of power.

And I know I can do this because I went to London on my own, and because I solved the mystery…and I was brave and I wrote a book and that means I can do anything.