Nora Ephron

I used to think my problem was that my disk was full; now I’m forced to conclude that the opposite is true: it’s becoming empty.

The past is slipping away and the present is a constant affront. I can’t possibly keep up.

As I listened to her, I suddenly realized that I desperately wanted to be a journalist and that being a journalist was probably a good way to meet men.

So I can’t remember which came first—wanting to be a journalist or wanting to date a journalist. The two thoughts were completely smashed up together.

Never begin a story with a quote, he said. Never use anything but “said.” Never put anything you really care about into the last paragraph because it will undoubtedly be cut for space.

I believed in journalism. I believed in truth. I believed that when people claimed they’d been misquoted, they were just having trouble dealing with the sight of their words in cold, hard print. I believed that when political activists claimed that news organizations conspired against them, they had no idea that most journalistic enterprises were far too inept to harbor conspiracy. I believed that I was temperamentally suited to journalism because of my cynicism and emotional detachment; I sometimes allowed that these were character flaws, but I didn’t really believe it.

But for many years I was in love with journalism. I loved the city room. I loved the pack. I loved smoking and drinking scotch and playing dollar poker. I didn’t know much about anything, and I was in a profession where you didn’t have to. I loved the speed. I loved the deadlines. I loved that you wrapped the fish.

Freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one.

The reason it’s important for a Democrat to be president is the Supreme Court.

I was the one who made us rich, and now the bastard is going off and spending my money on bimbos while I’m stuck in goyishe heaven in an inappropriate costume. Fuck this, I said to myself, and at that moment I came back

But trust me. You’ll have to trust me, because there’s no real way to convey what she does in her office that doesn’t sound like some sort of Yiddish mumbo jumbo.