George Plimpton
George Plimpton
George Ames Plimptonwas an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review. He was also famous for "participatory journalism" which included competing in professional sporting events, acting in a Western, performing a comedy act at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and playing with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and then recording the experience from the point of view of an amateur...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth18 March 1927
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
I never understood people who don't have bookshelves.
I have never been convinced there's anything inherently wrong in having fun.
That is one of the problems with oral biography, in that many different points of view are offered: contradictions, refutations, and so on.
They did not specify that I had to run the race from the beginning, ... about a block and a half from the finish - and I entered it immediately behind the fellow who was leading the race. He looked over his shoulder and there I was, fresh as a daisy. This poor man put on a desperate sprint, which is quite a feat if you've run 26 miles, and he managed to cross the finish line before I did, which gives you some sense of my speed.
At the base of it was the urge, if you wanted to play football, to knock someone down, that was what the sport was all about, the will to win closely linked with contact.
It's like people always say, Well, does sport teach you anything in life? It teaches you certain things, but it doesn't teach you other things. It doesn't teach, as I say, very much about marriage, very much about how to make a living, any of those things.
Art has something to do with the arrest of attention in the midst of distraction.
Well, I have to write. A lot of people forget that. They think I’m sort of crazy baffoon who can’t make up his mind what to do in life
You do not cut a check in the state of Kansas to John Doe, executioner. The executioner is paid in cash so there's no trail to him
The New York Times published the guest list on the front page. The masks were a brilliant concept.