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Joel Stein

Joel Stein Quotes

Journalist

Joel Stein is an American journalist born on July 23, 1971. He is known for his humorous and satirical writing style, having served as a columnist for publications such as the Los Angeles Times and Time magazine.

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Famous Joel Stein Quotes

“If New Vegas foretells something about America's future, then the culture wars are all but over, and culture lost.”

Ifs War America Culture Lost Vegas

Author:Joel Stein

“When wine drinkers tell me they taste notes of cherries, tobacco and rose petals, usually all I can detect is a whole lot of jackass.”

I Can Whole Taste Wine Rose Notes Tobacco Cherries Petals Drinkers Jackasses Rose Petals Wine Drinkers

Author:Joel Stein

“You can get away with stuff in a one-page story that you can't get away with in a book.”

Book Stories Stuff Pages Get Away

Author:Joel Stein

“What I wound up doing, which I think is really journalistically dubious, is changing the order of some of the things I did, so that the things I ended up struggling with the most wind up being two-thirds of the way in.”

Thinking Way Two Order Struggle Wind Thirds Wounds Dubious

Author:Joel Stein

“I wish I'd legitimately talked about some painful moments in my life where I felt insufficient as a kid.”

Moments Kids Wish Felt Painful Insufficient Painful Moments

Author:Joel Stein

“I would be at home reading, because I felt so disconnected from humanity.”

Home Would Be Humanity Reading Felt Disconnected

Author:Joel Stein

“The fun thing about journalism is if you go do a story about something, you can now ask three intelligent questions about it. Or say three intelligent things. And that gets people talking.”

People Ifs Stories Three Asks Fun Talking Intelligent Journalism People Talking Fun Things

Author:Joel Stein

“I don't like to be in the forest. It's a weird thing. I've learned to have a general appreciation for nature, which has taken a while. But the forest, I still don't really love.”

Stills Taken Appreciation Forests I've Learned Weird Things Things I've Learned

Author:Joel Stein

“You really, really have to care about animals to want to kill one. You have to learn all this stuff about them and start thinking like them.”

Thinking Want Care Stuff Animal

Author:Joel Stein

“I can't imagine deer hunting. I used to think I couldn't imagine deer hunting because killing a deer seemed so awful. But now I think about just sitting in a tree and doing nothing all day and probably not even seeing a deer. Not moving and sitting in a tree? That seems rough.”

Thinking I Can Seems Moving Used Imagine Seeing Tree Sitting Killing Awful Rough Hunting Doing Nothing Deer Deer Hunting

Author:Joel Stein

“If you're at my level and you go to a bookstore, even a good turnout is not that many people. Sometimes it is. But for the most part, it's not a huge turnout.”

People Ifs Sometimes Levels Huge Bookstores

Author:Joel Stein

“I want to be heavily tied to a city that I write for every week, that knows my stuff and I can interact with.”

Knows Want Writing I Can Stuff Cities Week Tied

Author:Joel Stein

“I think I realized that Dave Barry was funnier than I'll ever be, and he made no attempt to make any actual points. He had a general libertarian point of view, but in general, he just liked to make jokes.”

Thinking Made Views Jokes Point Of View Libertarian I Realized Dave

Author:Joel Stein

“I always thought that being at Time and tweaking your bosses and exploiting your expense account was just fun. Just joyous.”

Fun Accounts Boss Expenses Joyous

Author:Joel Stein

“Reporting in general makes me pretty nervous. But I realized: all the amazing work experiences of my life were thanks to reporting. So that forces you to go do it.”

Force I Realized Nervous Thanks Work Experience Amazing Work

Author:Joel Stein

“I hate walking up to strangers.”

Hate Walking I Hate Stranger

Author:Joel Stein

“There have been people who represent something very symbolic and I've been freaked out interviewing them.”

People Has Beens Symbolic

Author:Joel Stein

“With a Q&A, you need obviously to keep it snappy.”

Author:Joel Stein

“I try to see what that person is thinking or feeling about that particular day. I just get more of a sense of what that person's like and hopefully it's more interesting than a normal conversation.”

Thinking Trying Persons Feelings Interesting Particular Conversation Normal Hopefully

Author:Joel Stein

“When Time got rid of my column, I thought it was all over. It was really sad. And then, I just started pushing it to lots of places. And I thought someone would run my column, I thought it was popular, and no one wanted it.”

Running Wanted Pushing Over It Columns Really Sad Pushing It

Author:Joel Stein

“People would ask if I wanted to host things and I was like, "No, I'm a writer, I don't host things." Just thinking I wouldn't be good at it - which is true - but also just wanting to hold on to some part of my identity.”

People Ifs Thinking Wanted Asks Identity Be Good Host

Author:Joel Stein

“As journalism dies, I kind of feel like I want some skills besides writing. I'd like to be able to write movies or host TV shows or whatever. Things that I might actually not inherently like quite as much, but are interesting and fun things to do. A good backup plan.”

Want Feels Writing Kind Shows Might Able Dies Fun Interesting Plans Tvs Skills Journalism Things To Do Host Tv Shows Fun Things Backup Backup Plan

Author:Joel Stein

“Early on, even in college, I figured out that it was just more interesting to me to create content than to write about other people. So that makes it more marketable.”

People Writing Interesting College

Author:Joel Stein

“I'm good at marketing myself through the columns. But compared to other people I know, as far as networking and pushing yourself out there, I'm not very good at that.”

People Knows Very Good Marketing Pushing Networking Columns Push Yourself

Author:Joel Stein

“Being in New York and having worked at Time Out New York and then being at Time, living in New York for a long time has helped because I know everybody. And they're the people who call me and give me jobs. So that kind of real networking, which is just living in a place and having jobs where people around you are extremely successful, has helped me tremendously.”

People Knows Giving Kind Long Real Jobs Successful New York Long Time Give Me Call Me Networking

Author:Joel Stein

“I love sushi, but I'm not going to write a column about it.”

Writing Columns Sushi

Author:Joel Stein

“I think the local food movement has been taken to idiotic extremes. And so I wrote about that and people got pissed.”

People Thinking Has Beens Taken Movement Extremes Locals Idiotic Local Food

Author:Joel Stein

“I'm not that clued into what people are that touchy about and how many of them there are and how niche these niches are.”

People Niche Touchy

Author:Joel Stein

“I have some idea that if I pick on [boy band] One Direction, I'll get a ton of hate mail, because I know that when you're 15, you love a band like you will kill people. But I don't quite realize that that's true about people - adults - who read The Hunger Games.”

People Ifs Knows Ideas Hate Games Realizing Boys Like You Band Picks Adults Hunger Mail One Direction Boy Bands Hate Mail

Author:Joel Stein

“Online reaction is very different than real-world reaction.”

World Different Real Reactions Online Real World

Author:Joel Stein

“When I get real big volumes of hate mail, it's usually because I wrote something poorly. But it's also because some group told people to e-mail me and those people didn't read the article, they read the post about what I wrote about. And they all e-mail me. And they all come around at the same time.”

People Real Bigs Hate Groups Posts Articles Mail Volume Old People Get Real Hate Mail

Author:Joel Stein

“People are different in different situations and people are different online than they are in real life.”

People Different Real Situation Real Life Online

Author:Joel Stein

“You don't really want an army of people making individual decisions. And I don't think I completely understood that until people gave me examples of what happens when your army takes over your government and it's like, "Oh, yeah, I guess you can't really have people make individual moral decisions."”

People Thinking Want Government Happens Individual Decision Moral Example Understood Army Yeah Over You Moral Decisions

Author:Joel Stein

“I've learned over time that every editor has told me when you're getting that much hate, you don't talk about it. You just kind of don't give it oxygen and let it go away. It's almost - not always, but almost - always the best policy.”

Giving Kind Hate Policy I've Learned Going Away Editors Hate You Oxygen Let It Go

Author:Joel Stein

“It's hard to discipline yourself not to explain yourself or apologize.”

Hard Discipline Apologizing Explain Yourself

Author:Joel Stein

“I don't read the "letters" section of Time magazine. I think it's just my habit as a reader. I don't read comments on stories, in general.”

Thinking Stories Reader Habit Letters Magazines Comment Sections Time Magazine

Author:Joel Stein

“I don't read "letters" sections of magazines, but I'll read anyone's blog post about me.”

Letters Magazines Posts Sections Blogs

Author:Joel Stein

“I can't explain why I don't read comments. Maybe because I worked at Time for so long and they don't have them, so I keep forgetting that they're there.”

Long I Can Forget Comment

Author:Joel Stein

“I never thought to look at the New York Times one, even though I knew people were pissed off. I've seen YouTube videos from people who are pissed off at me about that and that takes a lot of effort to go find.”

People Looks Effort New York Video Youtube New York Times Pissed Off

Author:Joel Stein

“I've definitely written people e-mails telling them I've loved their stories, but that seems more like a professional journalist thing to do.”

People Stories Seems Written Journalist Things To Do Mail

Author:Joel Stein

“I have a really high bar for being angry. Like, it doesn't even happen every year.”

Years Happens Angry Bars

Author:Joel Stein

“I can't imagine what someone would write that would infuriate me. Maybe if my loved one had died of some disease and someone was insensitive, that would piss me off.”

Ifs Writing I Can Imagine Disease Died Loved Ones Insensitive

Author:Joel Stein

“You're not going to change anyone's mind. Especially online.”

Author:Joel Stein

“I've gotten thicker skin mostly from being older. You just stop caring quite as much about everything.”

Skins Caring Stop Caring

Author:Joel Stein

“Basically, I wake up, take care of my son for a little while, and then like, "I am gonna write!" And then I wind up.”

Writing Littles Care Son Wind Wake Up Take Care My Son

Author:Joel Stein

“When I lose my column again, I'm sure I'll get hungry again. Maybe it's having a kid, but it's probably just getting to do what I always wanted to do - I'm really not that hungry.”

Kids Wanted Loses Hungry Columns

Author:Joel Stein

“You don't get anywhere without saying yes.”

Author:Joel Stein

“The people who get places in life just say yes to everything.”

People Place In Life

Author:Joel Stein

“The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they're following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying.”

People May Order Choices Individual Moral Morality Truth Is Army Responsible Following Triggers Moral Choices Following Orders

Author:Joel Stein

“Heaven is totally overrated. It seems boring. Clouds, listening to people play the harp. It should be somewhere you can't wait to go, like a luxury hotel. Maybe blue skies and soft music were enough to keep people in line in the 17th century, but heaven has to step it up a bit. They're basically getting by because they only have to be better than hell.”

People Should Enough Play Seems Heaven Bits Waiting Lines Steps Hell Sky Century Listening Blue Clouds Boring Luxury Hotel Overrated Blue Sky Harps 17th Century Luxury Hotels

Author:Joel Stein

About the Author

Born: July 23, 1971
Known for: Journalist
Quotes: 51

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