| "Well, well, well, Mr. Proctor. You've tinkered your way right into a correction box." -- Bob Erlandson | Budget line from Barbieri: "Two men shot each other, one in the neck and the other in the chest, in an East Baltimore shoot-out. Police say the dispute was either about drugs or the result of a heated debate over the use of red and blue symbolism in 18th-century French romantic poetry." | "In another 10 minutes, he'll be the Anne Arundel bureau's problem." -- Dick Irwin, looking out a newsroom window while watching Pope John Paul II ride past in the popemobile in the final minutes of his visit to Baltimore, 1995. |
|
"I was reading about the Unabomber and thinking about Zorzi . . ." - Mike Littwin |
"Fuck, fuck, fucking, fuck, fuck, fuck." - A dieting Carl Schoettler, while eating a cottage cheese sandwich | "I'll tell you why Johnny can't read. Because Johnny doesn't give a shit." -- Bob Erlandson |
| "The Baltimore Sun -- the only daily American newspaper to be repeatedly scooped by the Encyclopedia Britannica" -- Carleton Jones | "George Washington, who would have been 263 yesterday had he lived . . ." -- unedited copy from Rafael Alvarez on holiday weekend, February 1995 | Steve Luxenberg to Jane Smith: "You'll be working with Dave Ettlin. He's . . . unusual." |
|
Ettlin: "Did you
call your wife?" Mike James: "No, I forgot, I was on deadline." Ettlin: "Well, then you're divorced, asshole." |
Ettlin, attempting to shoot down a story, as is the cardinal rule of rewrite: "Why should we care about this salmonella outbreak? They're pretty much all the same." |
Ex-paranoid call
to Ettlin via
late-night
telephone: "I
have news.
They've stopped following me . . . ." |
| Roger Twigg lede: "Seventy-three-year-old Luther Braxton, like many men his age, proudly proclaims that he is a senior citizen who retired years ago after having worked for a Baltimore County private trash hauler." | "I haven't eaten since Sunday night." -- Sun night editor Norman Wilson, lifting his head up from reading copy at 10 p.m. Tuesday. | "It's like Keno, I never win." -- Frank P.L. Somerville, after opening up a Pepsi can that contained no syringe (during the odd syringe-in-can scare, circa 1993). |
| "I've done my part. I brought people down a lot this year." -- Mike James, Christmas Eve 1992, after having just written up the double-murder of an East Baltimore mother and daughter who were slain while baking Christmas cakes. |
Mike James:
"They tell me my
story is going
A1 tomorrow."
Laura Lippman: "There's a whole world of hurt waiting for you." |
Alvarez, in
disbelief after
getting an inch
count on the
computer: "I
find it hard to
believe I've
written only six
inches."
Eric Siegel: "The system now only recognizes quality inches." |
| "When I rose to the surface, the fire department already had a spotlight on me." -- Peter Hermann, hours after falling into the Inner Harbor while covering a fire and being rescued on a hook |
Man in gorilla
costume,
standing at the
city desk: "What
is your birthday
wish?"
Ettlin: "You on Calvert Street, right now." |
"I have nothing against supervision. It's just that there's a lot of it." -- Mike James |
| Mike Ollove: "It's as cold as a feature editor's elbow." | Somerville, editing a rookie's copy: "How did the 2300 block of Guilford Avenue get to be in East Baltimore?" Alvarez: "The same way the hippies levitated the Pentagon, Frank." | Bill Zorzi: "Does anyone have any Wite-Out?" Norm Wilson [an African-American city editor]: "No, but I've got a MAC-10." |
| Departing summer intern, about the newsroom people drinking with her at the foot of Clinton Street on her last night: "I just realized you're the people my mother warned me about." | "A young reporter just asked me who Marvin Mandel was." -- A dismayed Jeff Price. |
A reporter over
lunch: "Jews
don't hunt.
Name one Jew
that hunts."
Ollove: "Simon Wiesenthal." |
| "He was a transvestite Korean War veteran who weighed 300 pounds and could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch. If that's not a lead obit, I don't know what is." -- David Simon | "When they came for the feature writers, I said nothing, because I was not a feature writer." -- Ollove | DeWitt Bliss, recradling his phone after taking obit info: "Yep. Good ol' heart failure." |
| Alvarez: "I become more like Gandhi every day." |
Alvarez, putting
call on hold:
"It's for you,
Frank."
Somerville: "On the phone?" Alvarez: "No, a fucking carrier pigeon just landed on the men's room window." |
Lippman: "I would have been very happy as a hamster on a wheel." |
|
Gov. William
Donald
Schaefer: "Read
my lips, I never
said it."
Doug Birch: "Read my lips, I have it on tape." |
Zorzi: "Leave me
alone, I'm on
deadline." Gil Watson: "We're all on deadline, Bill. Life's a fucking deadline." |
"I have never said anything even remotely quoteworthy." -- Tim Wheeler |
Works © 2010 by the individual authors except as noted. Remainder of site © 2010 by the Writers Guild of America, East Foundation. Site map
