Jon Weisman Quotes & Sayings

I was very conscious of race as I was writing. I was lucky to have spent real time in Portuguese Africa, but I am white and my main characters are white, outsiders at sea in the "Dark Continent." — Jon Weisman

Thatcher had broken the miners' union, all but crushed the Labour Party, dramatically cut back the welfare state, even flirted with a poll tax. In the circles I ran in, Reagan was mocked as a childish dolt. Thatcher was despised. — Jon Weisman

I was very disciplined when home - lights out for the girls at 9:00, two hours of writing for me. It was murder on my marriage. — Jon Weisman

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, but usually fiction is just better. — Jon Weisman

History - the non-fiction version - must inform the fiction to make it truthful; too much of it and your genres are colliding. — Jon Weisman

There is, in my mind, no higher compliment to pay a non-fiction book than to say it reads like a novel. — Jon Weisman

It is simply much easier to infuse life, feeling, and higher truth into a novel than a non-fiction work, to find the license to write truth without being wedded to fact. — Jon Weisman

The professions of novelist and journalist are very separate. As a novelist, you are ultimately working for yourself. Yes, you need the approval of a publisher and an audience, but what is valued in fiction writing - style, individual voice, insight - is scorned by the editor who is combing through your newspaper article. — Jon Weisman

I am not trying to be young again. But I do feel the need to capture that energy in story form before it slips from my mind, to recount those adventures if not relive them. — Jon Weisman

I have prided myself with striving for objectivity, something many literary-minded critics dismiss as impossible. But in Washington, reporters are practically the only people who actually spend time talking to Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, and I find the longer I report in Washington, the mushier and less conclusive my own views are. I like it that way. — Jon Weisman

One of the great sadnesses of my life, as I take stock at middle age, is the sense that the adventure largely ended by the time I was twenty-five. — Jon Weisman

I hope I will get to novelize my present circumstances at some point. I have some great stories to tell. — Jon Weisman

I have always had a hard time revising my work as a journalist, which was never much of a problem. You always have editors as backstops. Their job is to perfect your story. Most of them want to be useful. — Jon Weisman

For all the worship that Ronald Reagan elicits in conservative circles in the United States, I would venture that Thatcher did far more to reshape British society than Reagan did here. — Jon Weisman

Novelists may be able to seek advice from readers and editors, but in the end, it is up to them to get the book right. — Jon Weisman