Words matter. These are the best Richard Ben Cramer Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Losing the presidency is not like losing any other office. More than any other office, it’s a vote about you as a whole human being.
It’s very hard to imagine anybody being president when the stuff that’s written about them is empty of who they are.
Certainly no man could be such an irredeemable ‘schlub’ as the American press portrays its losers.
Don’t be the schmuck on the other side of the table. Don’t get an interview with the guy. Be in the room with him while he’s being interviewed by someone else.
He’s made a business out of being Joe DiMaggio. To remain Joe DiMaggio, you better not have too much known. He’s right. The closer you get, the more explosively bad stuff you find.
DiMaggio was never a rube. He was very smart and very urban. Coming out of the Great Depression, he was the immigrant boy who made it big. Coming back from World War II, he had all the wealth and power that New York aspired to. When New York saw itself as the center of the world, he was its paragon of class.
We’re still in the ditch, and the Gennifer Flowers story about Bill Clinton says it all. A tabloid fired several bullets into the air, and the rest of the herd began to stampede.
We strove for more than 60 years to give Joe DiMaggio the hero’s life. From his debut at Yankee Stadium in 1936 until his death in 1999, DiMaggio was, at every turn, one man we could look at who made us feel good.
I had every stress-related illness you can get.
People feel overloaded, that politics has become kind of a public utility: hot- and cold-running politics any time of the day or night.
When your friend causes you trouble, a president gets rid of those friends.
There is not often much policy discussion with the Bushes. There isn’t much introspection. Several generations of Bush men could pass by in which the great questions of humankind will go undiscussed.
The whole point of Israel was to create a place where Jews could live the best life – and liveliest – in accordance with their values.
You can say you’re going to take a vacation, and you can even take the time, but you might as well not, because the book is still sitting in your head.
I think the story of DiMaggio was alluring precisely for its impossibility.
I used to think that the image of the press in the 1940s – a bunch of guys in hats screaming on the courthouse steps – was all baloney. I used to say, ‘I know reporters. We’re not like that.’ But we are.
Few men try for best ever, and Ted Williams is one of those.
The average-guy routine works only so much, and then people begin to want something more.
TV is set up to be just a shout fest: Is this good for Republicans or bad for Republicans; is this good for Cain or bad for Cain… tell me something that I need to know.
Even if you had the wherewithal to embarrass a reporter, there was no mechanism to do it. And in most cases, you might as well save your breath because the reporter had no shame anyway.
I was with the mujaheddin, the rebels, and they were fighting against the Russians, and they would bring me along. Some of the adventures, when I look back at them now, it’s a wonder I’m still around.
I’m just an old storyteller, and I always wanted to know, what the hell were these candidates really like?
At every step in his life, DiMaggio was what New Yorkers wanted in a hero.
He was J. DiMaggio, and that was his business. He always was served and hosted – he was America’s guest. And I really I don’t think we would have the athletes that we have today and the social system in which they live without DiMaggio and what he did.
If you’re following candidates in a campaign, you get on their plane, and what they’re generally doing is they’re dividing the cost of that charter flight by the number of reporters they’re carrying aboard. In effect, the press is buying them that campaign flight.
The first time I met Alex Rodriguez, he was in the fight of his life. He was the guy who was supposed to have everything – good looks, good health, good habits – all the talent in the world and most of the money.
When there are fewer and fewer publishers of scale, it’s just not good for authors.
The expectations for a nonfiction writer are awful high.
At some point… Israel ground away, or gave away, her birthright of loyalty from the West.
I’m enough of a patriot to think that the American public makes good choices.
