Amy Waldman
Amy Waldman
Amy Waldmanis an American author and journalist. She was a reporter with the New York Times for a total of eight years. For three years she was co-chief of the South Asia bureau. Before that she covered Harlem, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and the aftermath of 9/11...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
CountryUnited States of America
islamic government september-11
The September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon prompted a fundamental shift in the American government's approach to Islamic terrorism.
new-york zero people
While researching 'The Submission,' I went to a protest against the Ground Zero mosque in New York when I was about to give birth to twins. It was about 100 degrees. People thought I was very dedicated.
creativity thinking naps
Work less than you think you should. It took me a while to realise there was a point each day when my creativity ran out and I was just producing words - usually lousy ones - for their own sake. And nap: it helps to refresh the brain, at least mine.
reality confusion coherence
As a reporter you tend to seek coherence from your subject or your source - it all needs to add up and make sense. In truth, in reality, there's often a great deal of murkiness and muddiness, confusion and contradiction.
character trying layers
As a novelist, you deepen your characters as you go, adding layers. As a reporter, you try to peel layers away: observing subjects enough to get beneath the surface, re-questioning a source to find the facts. But these processes aren't so different.
perfect decision made
There were in life rarely, if ever, "right" decisions, never perfect ones, only the best to be made under the circumstances.
picks
Nothing in life gets dropped without someone else having to pick it up.
reality editing criminals
Fabricating reality was criminal; editing it, commonplace.
secret want given
Perhaps this was the secret to being at peace: want nothing but what is given to you.
redemption walking escalators
In life, redemption was walking up the down escalator: stop to congratulate yourself, and back you slid.
home asking-why worry
Marrying Cal, the scion of a family whose wealth dated to the Industrial Revolution and had multiplied through every turn of the American economy since, ought to have eased her worries about failing to climb as high as she believed she deserved. But the money was his, not theirs. The unspoken power this gave him kept her from asking: Why don't you stay home?
attitude firsts steps
The rhetoric is the first step, it coarsens attitudes
writing thinking years
I wasn't sitting around years ago thinking, 'I really want to write a novel.
mash-up taste kind
I'm kind of a mash-up of taste - Graham Greene and Jane Austen; W.G. Sebald and Alice Munro.