David Grann

“I guess if I had to pick one interest that is unique, it would be giant squids - I'm disturbingly fascinated by them and even wrote a story about the hunt for them.”

“There are some incredibly gifted writers in the world. You can count them on a hand. They're blessed, and they've worked at their craft, but there's very few.”

“Honestly, I had no idea what to do on Twitter when I started. I didn't follow it enough. Slowly, though, I started to realize what I'm okay at. Like, I'm just not particularly witty.”

“I think you get into trouble as an author and a journalist when, rather than owning the gaps, you try to elide them.”

“You want the story to be about something, have some deeper meaning, but there is also an emotional, almost instinctual, element, which is, does this story seize some part of you and compel you to get to the bottom of it?”

“When I work on stories, I tend to be pretty obsessive.”

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

“The public, the whites - not just in Oklahoma, but across the United States - were transfixed by the Osage wealth which belied images of Native Americans that could be traced back to the first brutal contact with whites.”

“Memory is a code to who we are, a collection of not just dates and facts but also of epic emotional struggles, epiphanies, transformations.”

“If I can find the right idea, I can get out of the way and do a good story.”

“You have to go where the truth takes you, and that doesn't always take you in exactly the same place where people you speak to might want,or suspects may want. That's your ultimate obligation.”

“It's funny: I don't know if she babysat, but I spent time with Judy Blume when I was little.”

“I wish a book could reach as many people as film, but we have to be realistic about it.”

“Baseball, of course, has long been played under the burden of metaphor. More so than basketball or football, it is supposed to represent something larger than itself.”

“The biggest difference with Twitter and writing long form is you're part of a virtual community where you know people, or think you know them, through their links.”

“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.”

“An Indian Affairs agent said, 'The question will suggest itself, which of these people are the savages?”

“I had always been a huge Sherlock Holmes fan.”

“I tried a few grad school programs because I didn't know how to make it... Eventually, I was desperate for a job, and there was a new newspaper opening up in Washington, D.C., called 'The Hill.' Even though my interest in politics wasn't huge, they gave me a job as a copy editor.”

“Because I read so much nonfiction for work, I enjoy fiction most, especially detective novels and mysteries that keep me awake at night.”