Quotes

Using quotes is supposed to be fun, right? Making the article colorful, showing the personality of the interviewee and helping readers see the story from interesting angels: these are what quotes are for. But again… when it comes to figuring out what quotes to use: just another pain.

I’m really starting to hate this textbook. It talks so easily about what a good quote should be: unique, colloquial, said by an important person, accurate, has to have a clear meaning and if possible, nothing should be removed or added to it. Yeah, right. Why don’t the authors of the book go out and get quotes for me?

But it’s really comforting to see that I’m not the only one struggling. Every time I open up The New York Times, it’s for sure that I’ll find a couple terrible quotes. Seriously. Getting quotes is about having luck. I mean, why would a military officer use unique expressions when talking about a war and killing people?

It’s also hard to get quotes accurately. I hate relying on voice recorders, because knowing that they do the reporting for me makes me zone out during speeches, and also, the battery usually goes down in the middle of the coolest quote. So, I usually take notes and try to look for quotes, even though I don’t even know what the angle of my story will be. And then I hear the perfect quote, and people laugh, and I try to write it down, and the speaker keeps talking, and bammm, the quote’s GONE! “I should have brought my voice recorder!” Too late…

And also, so many time the speaker just rambles, he starts a sentence and then goes on to another one without finishing it… How am I supposed to get quotes then?!

But I once I have the quote, I like attributing them. I know it sounds geeky, but I like the punctuation and the attribution around quotes, it’s a bit like doing the final touches on a nice cake, you know, putting on the frosting and the candles. They’re so to say the fun part.