Writing for adults and writing for young people is really not that different. As a reporter, I have always tried to write as clearly and simply as possible. I like clean, unadorned writing. So writing for a younger audience was largely an exercise in making my prose even more clear and direct, and in avoiding complicated digressions. Serge Schmemann Read Quote
My own kids were with me in Berlin when Germany was reunited, and they were with me in Moscow when the Soviet Union collapsed. We talked about these things at the dinner table, at their schools, with their friends. Serge Schmemann Read Quote
We all know that much of what we hear in life is not really so. Canned laughter and ‘sweetened’ applause have been TV staples for decades, and all the slamming doors, breaking glass and squealing tires you hear in movies are sound effects. Serge Schmemann Read Quote
Newspaper reporting is really storytelling. We call our articles ‘stories,’ and we try to tell them in a way that even people who don’t know all the background can understand them. Serge Schmemann Read Quote
The fall of the Berlin Wall is very much a sequel, a continuation of the story about Eastern Europe emerging from war and Communism. The notion of presenting history as a story also appealed to me very much, since that is the way I look at the events I cover as a reporter. Serge Schmemann Read Quote
I guess what I’m really saying is something obvious – that there’s a unique pride in watching a home team from rival turf, especially when we’re not supposed to be any good. Serge Schmemann Read Quote
Every time some spoiled European soccer millionaire complains about the blaring vuvuzelas, I want them to blare louder. Serge Schmemann Read Quote
Soccer is a great game, and the rich variety of styles and passions that come with being truly global makes the World Cup a nonpareil event in the universe of competitive sport. Serge Schmemann Read Quote
Like many a Yank before me, I have tried to explain to European friends that Americans actually know soccer quite well, that many of us played it in school and college, but that, well, we just don’t find it quite as exciting as, say, what we call football. Serge Schmemann Read Quote
Back when George W. Bush was identifying his Axis of Evil, it struck me that a longer and more instructive list could be compiled of the Axis of the Humiliated (or Insulted and Injured, to borrow from Dostoevsky). Serge Schmemann Read Quote
