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The autobiographer works in a treacherous terrain. The journalist has a much safer job.

- Janet Malcolm
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Janet Malcolm
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The autobiographer works in a treacherous terrain. The journalist has a much safer job.

Journalists who swallow the subject's account whole and publish it are not journalists but publicists.

You could say that any book that takes a position is not fair, unless you keep saying, 'On the one hand, on the other...' and take a great deal of trouble to present both sides. That kind of journalism tends not to be very interesting.

Analysts keep having to pick away at the scab that the patient tries to form between himself and the analyst to cover over his wounds. The analyst keeps the surface raw, so that the wound will heal properly.

If you scratch a great photograph, you find two things; a painting and a photograph.

As an observer, I'm analysing my reactions, I guess, and my thinking; but about the process of writing... I am not very talented at talking about what I do as a writer.

The dominant and most deep-dyed trait of the journalist is his timorousness. Where the novelist fearlessly plunges into the water of self-exposure, the journalist stands trembling on the shore in his beach robe.

I don't go out of my way to be friendly, because it's completely unnecessary. People tell you what they are going to tell you no matter what.

The journalistic 'I' is an overreliable narrator, a functionary to whom crucial tasks of narration and argument and tone have been entrusted, an ad hoc creation, like the chorus of Greek tragedy. He is an emblematic figure, an embodiment of the idea of the dispassionate observer of life.

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The autobiographer works in a treacherous terrain. The journalist has a much safer job.

The autobiographer works in a treacherous terrain. The journalist has a much safer job.

The autobiographer works in a treacherous terrain. The journalist has a much safer job.

The autobiographer works in a treacherous terrain. The journalist has a much safer job.

The autobiographer works in a treacherous terrain. The journalist has a much safer job.

The autobiographer works in a treacherous terrain. The journalist has a much safer job.

The autobiographer works in a treacherous terrain. The journalist has a much safer job.

The autobiographer works in a treacherous terrain. The journalist has a much safer job.

The autobiographer works in a treacherous terrain. The journalist has a much safer job.

The autobiographer works in a treacherous terrain. The journalist has a much safer job.

The autobiographer works in a treacherous terrain. The journalist has a much safer job.

The autobiographer works in a treacherous terrain. The journalist has a much safer job.

The autobiographer works in a treacherous terrain. The journalist has a much safer job.

The autobiographer works in a treacherous terrain. The journalist has a much safer job.

The autobiographer works in a treacherous terrain. The journalist has a much safer job.