David Grann

To be honest, I used to always procrastinate when I write. I mean, I love writing, but I hate it. ”

I love the magic of stories and the power of stories. ”

I'm kind of odd; I'm a technophobe who isn't a technophobe. I'm afraid of new things, but eventually I love them. That happened with Twitter. ”

There are certain stories that remind you of the moral purpose that originally drew you to become a reporter. ”

There's a tendency when we write history to do it with the power of hindsight and then assume almost god-like knowledge that nobody living through history has. ”

A lot of the stories I write about have an element of mystery. They're crime stories or conspiracy stories or quests. They do have built into them revelations and twists. But the revelations, to me, come from seeing history as it's unfolding, or life as it's unfolding. ”

I spend my life mostly disproving conspiracies. ”

The way we live history is not the way historians tell history. Our lives are messy and chaotic and bewildering. ”

Firemen have a culture of death. There are rituals, carefully constructed for the living, to process the dead. ”

I had many different careers early on. I knew I wanted to be a writer. But, like so many people, I didn't know how to be one - other than just do it. I didn't know what form it would take. ”