Top 70 Interviewing Quotes

As a young man… you don’t know anything about yourself. And add on to that, you’re on the cover of magazines. People are interviewing you about what you think. You feel like a real phony.

I learned that I never really know the true story of my guests’ lives, that I have to content myself with knowing that when I’m interviewing somebody, I’m getting a combination of fact and truth and self-mythology and self-delusion and selective memory and faulty memory.

I loved my time at MTV because the music was critical; the music was our thrust. That’s what the channel was all about. And I loved that, because we were pushing the limits with how we were covering and interviewing and consuming music and bands.

Interviewing Hugh McIlvanney, I got to read lots of his stuff again. I’m a big fan of his writing.

We all prospect, and don’t even know we’re doing it. When you start the dating process, you are actually prospecting for the person you want to marry. When you’re interviewing employees, you are prospecting for someone who will best fit your needs.

I started shooting ‘The Defenders’ two days after I wrapped’ Friday Night Lights.’ I was doing research for ‘The Defenders’ throughout – interviewing lawyers and sitting in courtrooms just to watch – but there’s something fun about throwing yourself in the water and learning by doing.

I like doing the readings and the autographing, but the interviewing gets a little tedious because you get asked the same questions every day and sometimes three or four times a day.

I thought I was going to do some cult, cool, late-night interviewing thing on BBC2. But everyone kept saying: ‘No, Michael, you’re teatime, you’re not cool.’

Interviewing is not a democratic art.

My interviewing style and my approach to things is that, yes, it’s okay to be sincere; it’s okay to be yourself; it’s okay to be real.

One of the great challenges of being a modern historian is interviewing multiple people who were all there for something, some event. No one’s version matches up 100% with other people’s, even if it’s three or four people on a conference call.

I’ve had the privilege of meeting and/or interviewing most of the top metal and hard rock artists at various points in my career and sharing their stories and music with millions of fans on air through TV and radio.

Interviewing someone is very similar to preparing a character, isn’t it? You’re just asking questions: ‘Who is this person? Why did they make that choice? Why are they doing that?’ You’re being Sherlock Holmes.

Their term project consists of a fieldwork collection of folklore that they create by interviewing family members, friends, or anyone they can manage to persuade to serve as an informant.

Kathy Dewar, my high-school English teacher, introduced me to journalism. From the moment I wrote my first article for the student paper, I convinced myself that having my name in print – writing in English, interviewing Americans – validated my presence here.

Interviewing people is pretty natural for me.

When I was interviewing Hillary Clinton, I knew when I’d ask her something that she wasn’t going to give me the complete truth because she would break eye contact with me.

When I’m interviewing on the sofa for ‘This Morning’ it just feels like an intimate chat. Yes, there can be a producer talking through your earpiece but it all becomes second nature after a while.

I’m used to presenting programs about pop music, interviewing pop stars, and hosting awards.

I was interviewing an elder, Chief Fool’s Crow, who was the ceremonial chief. He was 103 years old. I was getting his information on the history of Lakota horses. He told me the story of Hidalgo and Frank Hopkins.

In September 2005, I was three things: the media blogger for ‘FishbowlNY,’ a maniacal Daily Show fan, and the only person to smuggle a tape recorder and camera into a big Magazine Publishers of America event featuring Jon Stewart interviewing five hotshot magazine editors in an unbelievable bloodbath.

Profiling, listening in on anyone and everybody who looks suspicious, or interviewing Muslims in a more intense way than interviewing Christian refugees is all acceptable.

When you consider how many people are really not good at communication in general and interviewing in specific, it’s no wonder that many companies struggle to build high-quality partnerships – or even staffs.

Jane Fonda was at the top of my list of women to meet and the only time I felt nervous about interviewing someone. She is one of the most dynamic women I have ever had the honor of talking to.

When you are interviewing someone, never let your camera person turn off the camera. The second you turn off the camera, they’ll say the magic thing that you’d been looking for the whole interview. People want to relax after the performance is done. Don’t be afraid of awkward silence. That is your friend.

And I managed to arrange to get some research support and to stay in Hong Kong for another year and a half, interviewing people coming out of China, both Westerners and Chinese. And that was my first real research study on thought reform or so-called brainwashing.

There are videos I used to take at home, pretending to be a newscaster, interviewing the teapot or my house cat.

So I don’t think that the default mode of aggressive interviewing is useful, because politicians just build a defence against it. In fact, they thrive on ‘Today’ because they know what’s going to happen.

I have long argued that no one should be allowed to write opinion without spending years as a reporter – nothing like interviewing all four eyewitnesses to an automobile accident and then trying to write an accurate account of what happened.

People do more important jobs than acting in film that should be recognised, but for some reason it’s big money, so people are elevated in status. If I was a bus driver, I’m sure you wouldn’t be interviewing me.

What I always tell people about Trump, or Kellyanne Conway, or Sarah Sanders, is that when you are interviewing these people, it is really more about the interviewer than the interviewee. What I mean by that is that the interviewer has to be ready to interrupt, fact-check, challenge, rebut.

I have the version of me where I’m interviewing someone, where I definitely am the straight man, and I like to show a lot of respect to my guest and let them take the reins. I don’t like to compete with my guests. I don’t like to be funnier than my guests or get into a ‘Who’s wackier?’ sort of thing.

I became the storyteller of South Side Chicago. I used an old Kiwi liquid shoe polish as a microphone. I’d go around the house interviewing everybody, telling stupid jokes, doing voices. I mimicked Sidney Poitier, Sammy Davis Jr., people on ‘Laugh-In,’ Flip Wilson.

At the Human Rights Foundation, I love being able to drive an interview and value-connecting with someone I’m interviewing so that they feel comfortable enough to open up and share their story with me.

So many of us can recall growing up with Gene Okerlund as the voice of our childhoods while interviewing the likes of Andre The Giant, Hulk Hogan, Roddy Piper, Ultimate Warrior, Randy Savage, Sting, and others.

The idea of interviewing someone is that you are getting their first off-the-cuff impression or response. You don’t want them to have the chance to really prepare.

Most rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read.

It’s the rejection that is hard. It’s not the interviewing that’s hard. It’s not the photography that’s hard. It’s, you know, approaching people all day long and having a good portion of those people reject you and some of them be rude.

In China, because Chinese is a tonal language, it can be kind of hard to follow people’s emotional tracks. There was one moment where a woman I was interviewing just sort of burst into tears, and I can usually sort of tell when things are coming on, and in that moment, it was very unexpected.

When I was there, something clicked in my head; I found myself interviewing people, searching out facts and figures. Later on I became much more self-conscious of what I was doing.

Managers get interviewed for jobs, but I think it should be the managers who are interviewing the chairman.

Whenever television cameras are interviewing people in their homes, I tend to look over their shoulders and have a good snoop at their living rooms. I am always astonished at how clean they all look, with nothing out of place or unnecessary or dropped down any old how.

I volunteered at Ayuda, in the office, on a regular basis, and I did everything from fingerprinting and interviewing persons of Hispanic origin who entered the country without inspection and who were seeking work-authorization permits.

When you’re interviewing someone, you’re in control. When you’re being interviewed, you think you’re in control, but you’re not.

Enough people write about me every day without even interviewing me.

I shoot for ‘Extra’ three times a week, and that’s great for Las Vegas, too. In addition to interviewing stars who are here for shows, parties and premieres, I’ll also get peoples’ reactions to different news items and topical gossip.