The Interview Quotes

“We actually wanted to ask you a few questions. About the interview you did this morning."
At the mention of her KTVU debut, Caitlyn softened a little. "You saw that?"
I nodded.
"How did I look on camera?"
Her grief was touching.”

— Gemma Halliday

“What I bring to the interview is respect. The person recognizes that you respect them because you're listening. Because you're listening, they feel good about talking to you. When someone tells me a thing that happened, what do I feel inside? I want to get the story out. It's for the person who reads it to have the feeling ... In most cases the person I encounter is not a celebrity; rather the ordinary person. "Ordinary" is a word I loathe. It has a patronizing air. I have come across ordinary people who have done extraordinary things. (p. 176)”

— Studs Terkel

“Olivia MacKenzie was certain she would have been offered the job if she hadn't punched the boss during the interview.”

— Julie Garwood

“The reporters who came to the press conference in the
office of the John Galt Line were young men who had
been trained to think that their job consisted of
concealing from the world the nature of its events.
It was their daily duty to serve as audience for some
public figure who made utterances about the public good,
in phrases carefully chosen to convey no meaning.
It was their daily job to sling words together in any
combination they pleased, so long as the words did not
fall into a sequence saying something specific.
They could not understand the interview now being
given to them.”

— Ayn Rand

“[Howard Roark] was asked for a statement, and he received a group of reporters in his office. He spoke without anger. He said:
'I can't tell anyone anything about my building. If I prepared a hash of words to stuff into other people's brains, it would be an insult to them and to me. But I am glad you came here. I do have something to say. I want to ask every man who is interested in this to go and see the building, to look at it and then to use words of his own mind, if he cares to speak.'
The Banner printed the interview as follows:
'Mr. Roark, who seems to be a publicity hound, received reporters with an air of swaggering insolence and stated that the public mind was hash. He did not choose to talk, but seemed well aware of the advertising angles of the situation. All he cared about, he explained, was to have his building seen by as many people as possible.”

— Ayn Rand

“His office was on the third floor of the Humanities & Social Sciences Building, just down the hall from the interview room. On the office door was a Peanuts cartoon of Lucy in the psychiatrist's booth with the little DOCTOR is IN sign. Professor Mitchell, a man on the cutting edge of humor.”

— Rick Riordan

“The psychotic clown I sent for his birthday will feel like a feather falling on a pillow atop a cloud. The laxative in my lunch? Child's play. If you think it was bad when I sent that fake resume for his open assistant position and the stripper came for the interview? No. We're talking Defcon Five, Vietcong-level mind fucking, do you hear me, Chloe?”

— Christina Lauren

“I think the interview went well, but it's so hard to say. Interviews seem such artificial situations; everyone on their best behavior trying desperately to hide behind a professional fa”

— E.L. James

“I convinced my parents to let me see an agent, but because I had been taught never to speak to strangers, I was so quiet during the interview, they said to bring me back when I was older.”

— Jason Fuchs

“I'm constantly playing this game in my head where I'm thinking, 'Can this quote be pared down and misinterpreted?' It doesn't matter what outlet I'm talking to and how comprehensive the interview is, because I have to think in terms of, 'Right, but 'People' magazine could just take this one quote and take it out of context.'”

— Anna Kendrick

“Some actors actually think about what they're going to talk about during the interview - they read up and meditate and plan quotes and get all inspired. It's very smart, but it's so planned. I never think to do that.”

— Aidan Quinn

“Being intellectually hospitable is a virtue that I bring into the interview space.”

— Krista Tippett

“I always felt journalists had a very clear idea of what they wanted to write about me before the interview began.”

— Ronald Frame

“I don't want to be a lobbyist. I want to provide strategic advice to companies. I said both of those things in the course of the interview, and I made clear this is a matter only for after I had become a private citizen and I was no longer a member of parliament.”

— Geoff Hoon

“I terminated the interview when I didn't know what he was talking about and went upstairs to lunch.”

— Graham Kennedy

“For a North Korean watcher, seeing 'The Interview' is like seeing an earnest endeavor reflected back through a freak-show mirror.”

— Barbara Demick

“If the video camera was loaded with a tape, it was never seen. If Detective Smith made a report of the interview, it was never produced in the legal proceedings that followed.”

— John Grisham

“In 1977, at least, he wished to have people believe that he shared and was proud of an attitude toward women that is not acceptable in a politician. In 2003, all he has said is that he doesn't remember the interview.”

— Michael Kinsley

“A lot of people have this strategy where if they have a hard question they wait to ask it to the end of the interview because they think the person is going to walk out. But what they have to realize is, is that if the person walks out, they have a pretty successful story.”

— Chuck Klosterman

“I think the interview form works best on the radio. There are a lot of personality traits conveyed in a person's voice, the rhythm of their speech or how confident they sound.”

— Terry Gross

“To think that you dared-to think that my-my noble boy-"
"He wasn't very noble. Mothers don't ever really know their sons, I think."
"Shameless girl!" cried Mrs. Morrison, so loud, so completely beside herself, that Priscilla hastily rang her bell ... "Open the door for this lady," she said to Annalise, who appeared with a marvellous promptitude; and as Mrs. Morrison still stood her ground and refused to see either Annalise or the door Priscilla ended the interview by walking out herself, with great dignity, into the bathroom.”

— Elizabeth Von Arnim

“The teams that worked on the innovative distribution of 'The Interview' are just a few of the many that put in long hours over our studio holiday to ensure business continuity, rebuild our systems, and protect our company.”

— Michael Lynton

“We released 'The Interview' through a variety of platforms, and we continue to look for other distribution options. Throughout this whole process, we never stopped - not for a single moment - trying to secure a broad release. Our studio takes great pride in continuing to grow the release of this movie and making it a success.”

— Michael Lynton

“There's all kinds of ways to be misunderstood, and one of them is via the interview.”

— Dean Wareham

“I think it's a problem when journalists have the title of their article before they do the interview, because it biases the way they conduct it.”

— Michel Gondry

“He needed no foreplay for the interview, and I was grateful. It's like sweet-talking your date when you both know you're about to get laid.”

— Gillian Flynn

“There was a telemarketing job one summer in high school that I was rejected for. I still walk by the building that I actually had the interview in. It's still in New York, and I always think about that job and why I didn't get it.”

— Noah Baumbach

“I remember when America was strong. The situation that has arisen due to "The Interview" and North Korea's Kim Jong Un is bizarre! More bizarre is that the pressure worked - and the movie will not be released. This is a comedy - a satirical look at a serious situation. Rob Lowe was right when he said, "Hollywood has done Neville Chamberlain proud today," referring to the British prime minister who appeased Hitler.”

— Anonymous.

“A lot of times, the press guys ask why I take an hour and a half to come to the interview room, but if you don't do the massage and the ice baths and the stretching and the cooling down and the eating, and your opponent is doing that stuff, they already have an advantage.”

— Andy Murray

“Thus terminating the interview, during which both ladies had trembled very much, and been marvellously polite
certain indications that they were within an inch of a very desperate quarrel ...”

— Charles Dickens

“The scene that has raised the most objections in 'The Interview' is at the very end, when Kim's head dissolves into flames. To me, it feels gratuitous.”

— Barbara Demick

“The way I work, the interview never becomes larger than the person being interviewed.”

— Ken Burns

“She disliked him more for having mastered her inner will. How dared he say that he would love her still, even though she shook him off with contempt? She wished she had spoken more - stronger. Sharp, decisive speeches came thronging to her mind, now that it was too late to utter them. The deep impression made by the interview was like that of a horror in a dream; that will not leave the room although we waken up, and rub our eyes, and force a stiff rigid smile upon our lips. It is there - there, cowering and gibbering, with fixed ghastly eyes, in some corner of the chamber, listening to hear whether we dare to breathe of its presence to anyone. And we dare not; poor cowards that we are!”

— Elizabeth Gaskell

“This man, commenting on the attack at Dennis Kebab, says we need more racists like Sverre Olsen to regain control of Norway. In the interview the word "racist" is used as a term of respect. Does the accused consider himself a "racist"?”

— Jo Nesbø

“If someone is brought in for an interview, for example, and is asked about their views on things, but has posted things that are completely contrary to the interview, frankly I have much more faith in what they posted than what they say during the course of an interview.”

— Adam Schiff

“Cat doesn't have to work. She's a woman of independent means. I settled enough money on her to allow her the freedom to do anything she wished. She went to boarding school for four years, and stayed to teach for another two. Eventually she came to me and said she'd accepted a position as a governess for the Hathaway family. I believe you were in France with Win at the time. Cat went for the interview, Cam and Amelia liked her, Beatrix and Poppy clearly needed her, and no one seemed inclined to question her lack of experience."
"Of course not," Leo said acidly. "My family would never bother with something so insignificant as job experience. I'm sure they started the interview by asking what her favorite color was.”

— Lisa Kleypas

“I'm relieved Peeta's alive. I tell myself again that if I get killed, his winnings will benefit my mother and Prim the most. This is what I tell myself to explain the conflicting emotions that arise when I think of Peeta. The gratitude that he game an edge by professing his love for me in the interview. The anger at his superiority on the roof. The dread that we may come face-to-face at any moment in this arena.”

— Suzanne Collins

“Recently a young journalist came to interview me about what I was doing the day war broke out. During the course of the interview I recounted the deaths of my only brother, my husband's only brother, a brother in law and my four best friends. "So," she said, did the war affect you in any way?”

— Deborah Cavendish, Duchess Of Devonshire

“Then let's do the interview over the phone. I've got a list of questions right-'
He hung up on me.
I stared at the phone in disbelief, then ripped a clean sheet of paper from my notebook. I scribbled Jerk on the first line. On the line beneath it I added, smokes cigars. Will die of lung cancer. Hopefully soon. Excellent physical shape.”

— Becca Fitzpatrick

“Once I saw a homeless man wearing his underwear on top of his pants. Now we say, why don't the homeless just go out and get a job? If he's wearing his underwear on top of his pants, I doubt his resume is in order, and I don't think he's going to make it too far in the interview process. In fact, I'm pretty sure that McDonald's has a no underwear over your pant policy.”

— Greg Giraldo

“For me, improvisation is about working with a partner. That is much easier to do in the interview, because you have a sounding board.”

— Stephen Colbert

“Interviewing friends is a tough one. Your duty to the interview must transcend your friendship. Occasionally you'll lose a friend.”

— Walter Cronkite

“A significant number of people believe tribal people still live and dress as they did 300 years ago. During my tenure as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, national news agencies requesting interviews sometimes asked if they could film a tribal dance or if I would wear traditional tribal clothing for the interview. I doubt they asked the president of the United States to dress like a pilgrim for an interview.”

— Wilma Mankiller

“Please don't make me a joke. End the interview with what I believe. I don't mind making jokes, but I don't want to look like one ... I want to be an artist,
an actress with integrity.”

— Marilyn Monroe

“When I was at the interview asked how I cope with life's difficulties, I said that saving sense of humor. I'm not lying ...”

— Eva Longoria

“North Korea referred to The Interview as absolutely intolerable and a wanton act of terror. Even more amazing? Not the worst review the movie got.”

— Tina Fey

“A diverse and lively collection, the highest art of the interview.”

— Joyce Carol Oates

“I feel like a lot of people involved with celebrity journalism have interesting ideas about the people they want to write about going into the interview. Then as soon as they actually sit down with that person, they basically ask the questions they think journalists are supposed to ask, and they start viewing themselves almost as a peer of the subject. Like they're going to become friends. That's why most celebrity journalism is so terrible.”

— Chuck Klosterman

“If Sony's not going to show 'The Interview,' that's it. No more North Korean movies for me.”

— Conan O'Brien

“What I really mean is that actors do the interview process because they have to. It's a good bargain: If I can do this part then I'll sell it. I just wish it wasn't me who had to do it because it feels very unnatural.”

— Kristen Stewart