Tom Stoppard on journalism

Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.

Every exit is an entry somewhere.

It is better to be quotable than to be honest.

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

Thomas Jefferson1743–1826

• Reading

I figured out why I’m not getting seriously rich. I write newspaper columns. Nobody ever makes newspaper columns into Major Motion Pictures starring Tom Cruise. The best you can hope for, with a newspaper column, is that people will like it enough to attach it to their refrigerators with magnets shaped like fruit.

Dave Barryborn 1947

• Dave Barry

You should never pick up a newspaper when you’re feeling good, because every newspaper has a special department, called the Bummer Desk, which is responsible for digging up depressing front-page stories with headlines like DOORBELL USE LINKED TO LEUKEMIA and OZONE LAYER COMPLETELY GONE DIRECTLY OVER YOUR HOUSE.

Dave Barryborn 1947

• Dave Barry