Quotes by Erik Larson - Page 3

At first glance, the story of the Lusitania doesn't seem like the sort of thing I would take on. I usually like ideas that are a little bit more complex, things that people don't know about - or maybe they once did, but now you bring it to life for them for the first time.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Life Time People
Glance
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I'm an early riser, for one thing. This started back when our kids were small. My wife and I would get up at 4 A.M. so that we could have a couple of peaceful hours before they woke up. That pattern has continued. I get up, make coffee, and while it's brewing, I do 50 sit-ups.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Coffee
Pattern
Woke
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I never recreate dialogue. I have often been asked by people, 'You must have made this up because this is dialogue, right?' Anything in my books that is in quotes comes from some kind of living historical document: a letter, a memoir, a court transcript, a newspaper interview.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Dialogue
Memoir
Document
Interview
Letter
Newspaper
Quotes
Recreate
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I think, one day, I might actually try writing a bunch of - a collection of essays maybe on the funnier side of the spectrum. I don't know. But it's fun to have, frankly, Twitter as kind of an outlet. When you're writing about dark things all day, it's kind of fun to have fun.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Essays
Spectrum
All Day
Frankly
Funnier
Have Fun
Outlet
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I figured, correctly, that Berlin in February was not a destination coveted by tourists. I found good airfares on Lufthansa, an airline I quite like, and got a great rate at a brand new Ritz-Carlton, which clearly hoped to seduce visitors into forsaking Hawaii for Potsdammer Platz.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Airline
Berlin
Brand New
Destination
February
Hawaii
Rate
Tourists
Visitors
Good Great New
Correctly
Figured
Hoped
Seduce
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I don't really have a bucket list, but if I did, one entry would be to dust off my college Russian and spend a big chunk of a year reading, or trying to read, 'War and Peace' as it was meant to be read, in Russian, with all that rumbly rocks-on-rocks poetry inherent to the language.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Dust
Entry
Inherent
Meant To Be
Chunk
List
Russian
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At some point in the idea process, I simply wear myself down and force myself to choose. But here's the thing: Once I do choose, suddenly all the other possibilities wither and die, and thus I never have a backlog of well-formed ideas waiting for me when my latest book gets finished.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Myself Waiting Me
Latest
Possibilities
Thus
Wither
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Place has always been important to me, and one thing today's Chicago exudes, as it did in 1893, is a sense of place. I fell in love with the city, the people I encountered, and above all the lake and its moods, which shift so readily from season to season, day to day, even hour to hour.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Cities
Lakes
People
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A very important part of my workday are the two Nunzillas on my windowsill. They keep me constant company. They're little windup toys, and when they move across the desk, they spark from the mouth. I think of them as my editors. They sort of remind you that the world can be a silly place.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Constant
Editors
Silly
Toys
World Me Keep
World Me Important
Desk
Important Part
Mouth
Remind
Spark
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After I finish writing a chapter, I'll print it out, cut it up into paragraphs, and cut away any transition sentences. Then I shuffle all the paragraphs and lay them out as they come. As I arrange and hold them next to each other, very quickly a natural structure for the chapter presents itself.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Natural
Next
Sentences
Shuffle
Structure
Writing
Come
After
Arrange
Away
Chapter
Itself
Cut
Each
Finish
Hold
Lay
Paragraphs
Presents
Quickly
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At some point, I stumbled across my two main protagonists: William E. Dodd, a mild-mannered professor of history picked by Roosevelt to be America's first ambassador to Nazi Germany, and Dodd's comely and rather wild daughter, Martha, who at first was enthralled with the so-called Nazi revolution.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Germany
Protagonists
Revolution
Ambassador
Wild
Martha
Picked
Professor
Roosevelt
So-Called
Stumbled
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I found a book facing out that I'd always meant to read: William Shirer's 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.' About a third of the way through, I suddenly, finally caught up to the fact that Shirer had been there in Berlin, from 1934 on, and was finally kicked out when the U.S. entered the war.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Berlin
Caught
Rise
Entered
Facing
William
Reich
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Hitler was such an anomalous character - he was so over-the-top chaotic in his approach to statesmanship, his manner and in the violence which overwhelmed the country initially. I think diplomats around the world... felt like something like that simply would not be tolerated by the people of Germany.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Approach
Chaotic
Character
Country
Diplomats
Germany
Over The Top
Statesmanship
Thinking
Character World People
By The People
Simply
Initially
Manner
Tolerated
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I was a promiscuous reader. I loved Nancy Drew books and Tom Swift - never the Hardy Boys - but I also read Dumas, Dickens, Poe, Conan Doyle, and Cornelius Ryan's war books. As to favorite character: I'm torn between Nancy, on whom I had an unseemly crush, and Edmond Dantes, the Count of Monte Cristo.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Conan
Crush
Dickens
Hardy
Nancy
Promiscuous
Reader
Torn
Count
Drew
Monte
Poe
Ryan
Swift
Tom
Whom
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The writer marks the changes he wants to make, while a proofreader also goes through the galley, checking it page-by-page against the manuscript. Once all these changes are identified, a second-pass proof is made, and this, too, gets sent to the author and the proofreader, and the process begins anew.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Proof
Anew
Author
Begins
Checking
Identified
Manuscript
Marks
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As a rule, I am very skeptical of tying books to anniversaries. I don't think readers care. I also feel that it just about guarantees that somebody else will be writing a book on the same subject, but being a former journalist, I'm always interested in, like, why write about something today? Why do it now?
Erik Larson / Journalist
Anniversary
Former
Guarantees
Skeptical
Tying
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I do think hubris played a role here as well, the belief that the Lusitania was too big and too fast to ever be caught by any submarine, and that, in any case, no U-boat commander would think to attack the ship because to do so would violate the long-held rules governing naval warfare against merchant shipping.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Belief
Caught
Governing
Hubris
Naval
Warfare
Rules
Against
Attack
Played
Case
Commander
Fast
Merchant
Well
Role
Ship
Submarine
Violate
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Room 40 knew a U-boat was heading south to Liverpool - knew the boat's history; knew that it was now somewhere in the North Atlantic under orders to sink troop transports and any other British vessel it encountered; and knew as well that the submarine was armed with enough shells and torpedoes to sink a dozen ships.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Boat
British
Dozen
Liverpool
Shells
Vessel
Armed
Atlantic
Somewhere
Encountered
Heading
North
Orders
Sink
Submarine
Transports
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The thing I always tell my writing students - I'm not a full-time instructor, by any means, but periodically I've taught writing students - what I always tell them is that the most important thing in narrative nonfiction is that you not only have to have all the research; you have to have about 100% more than you need.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Narrative
Nonfiction
Full-Time
Instructor
Most Important Thing
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The Lusitania is important, of course, because this is where Germany began its maritime campaign using this brand-new weapon. We have to appreciate how the submarine, as a weapon against civilian shipping, was a particularly novel thing - so novel that many people at the time dismissed its potential power, its potential relevance.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Germany
Maritime
Relevance
Shipping
Time Power People
Campaign
Civilian
Dismissed
Weapon
Submarine
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Beneath the gore and smoke and loam, this book is about the evanescence of life, and why some men choose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging the impossible, others in the manufacture of sorrow. In the end it is a story of the ineluctable conflict between good and evil, daylight and darkness, the White City and the Black.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Men
Book
Cities
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For 'Thunderstruck', I discarded about a dozen ideas. And then one afternoon, I was thinking about wireless. I don't know why. I guess because it's become so ubiquitous. I was thinking that maybe there's something I could do about the origin of wireless, so I did what any self-respecting person does these days: I Googled 'wireless.'
Erik Larson / Journalist
Afternoon
Discarded
Dozen
Ideas
Wireless
Guess
Maybe
Origin
Ubiquitous
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I was once again looking for a book idea, and I remembered Holmes, but I specifically remembered that there was this World's Fair thing in the background. I thought, 'I'll read about the fair.' I had nothing better to do. I'd dismissed about a dozen ideas, and I was getting sort of antsy. I started reading, and that's where I got hooked.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Dozen
Holmes
Hooked
Remembered
Antsy
Background
Better World Nothing
Dismissed
Fair
Specifically
Started Reading
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What drove me to do 'Dead Wake' was that after doing the most preliminary of reading and scoping out what kinds of materials might be available in archives and so forth, I realized that this book - the research, the writing - would present me with a rare opportunity to explore to a full extent the potential for suspense in a nonfiction work.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Archives
Available
Materials
Nonfiction
Suspense
Work Opportunity Me
Rare
Drove
Explore
Extent
Forth
Preliminary
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I had a nice part at big newspapers, small newspapers, and then I went to a very big newspaper - 'The Wall Street Journal.' I wrote longer pieces, and I got tired of working so hard on stories that had a shelf life of essentially one day. So then I started working on longer magazine pieces and realized then that you might as well be writing a book.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Journal
Newspapers
Shelf Life
Wall Street Journal
Magazine
Newspaper
Shelf
Street Journal
Wall Street
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Germans grew reluctant to stay in communal ski lodges, fearing they might talk in their sleep. They postponed surgeries because of the lip-loosening effects of anesthetic. Dreams reflected the ambient anxiety. One German dreamed that an SA man came to his home and opened the door to his oven, which then repeated every negative remark the household had made against the government.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Dream
Fear
Sleep
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To me, writing is a very physical process. I lay out the entire book with the two narratives side by side on my bedroom floor, and just get down on my hands and knees and start looking at it in that physical space. "Does this really follow from this? Should this be here or elsewhere?" I will literally cut the paper into paragraphs. I'll cut it into segments and move the segments around from one narrative to the other until I feel that I've found the natural structure.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Book
Moving
Writing
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Digression is my passion. I love telling the main stories, but in some ways, what I love most is using those narratives as a way of stringing together the interesting stories that people have kind of forgotten, and that are kind of surprising. The problem is, how do you pare stories away so that the book doesn't become a distracting jumble of material, and readers lose focus? In my experience, there's really only one way to do that. I pack it all in with the rough draft, then count on myself and my trusted readers to tell me what's good and what's not good.
Erik Larson / Journalist
Book
Passion
People
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Erik Larson Quotes - Page 3

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