You think of the rainforest as this incredibly abundant place of fauna and animals and flora. This great, rich wilderness. And yet it is such a biological battlefield in which everything is competing. – David Grann
The giant squid is the perfect embodiment of a sea monster: it is huge, it has tentacles, it has big eyes, and it is absolutely frightening-looking. But, most important, it is real. Unlike the Loch Ness monster, we know it’s out there. – David Grann
Honestly, I had no idea what to do on Twitter when I started. I didn’t follow it enough. Slowly, though, I started to realize what I’m okay at. Like, I’m just not particularly witty. – David Grann
The biggest difference with Twitter and writing long form is you’re part of a virtual community where you know people, or think you know them, through their links. – David Grann
We all mythologize to some degree ourselves and probably embellish. I think some of that is the desire to tell stories. – David Grann
The political hero is not like the sports champion or matinee idol or daring inventor; like the war hero, he is born only of tragedy. – David Grann
The amazing thing about the sea is that it is perhaps the last truly unexplored frontier; most oceanographers estimate that only about ninety-five per cent of the sea has been studied. Meanwhile, the oceans are believed to contain more animals than exist on land, a majority of which have never been discovered. – David Grann
I grew up around writers, and there was always a romance to them. They were charming. They would tell their stories of what they were working on, over the table. – David Grann
For a while, when I got out of college, I tried to write fiction. I’d grown up more around novelists, and my initial attraction was to write fiction. But I was much less suited for it. I always struggled to figure out what people were saying or doing in a particular moment. – David Grann
It’s funny: I don’t know if she babysat, but I spent time with Judy Blume when I was little. – David Grann
Because many squid have brain nerve fibres that are hundreds of times thicker than those of humans, neuroscientists have long used them for research. These nerve fibres have led to so many breakthroughs in the study of neurons that many scientists joke that the squid should receive a Nobel Prize. – David Grann
I had many different careers early on. I knew I wanted to be a writer. But, like so many people, I didn’t know how to be one – other than just do it. I didn’t know what form it would take. – David Grann
Early on, I tried fiction, but I wasn’t very good at it. I wrote a very bad novel that is thankfully sitting in a drawer somewhere. – David Grann
When I work on stories, I tend to lose sight of everything else. I forget to pay bills or to shave. I don’t change my clothes as often as I should. – David Grann
I’m kind of odd; I’m a technophobe who isn’t a technophobe. I’m afraid of new things, but eventually I love them. That happened with Twitter. – David Grann
Heroes have always served as a reflection of their times, a template of who we are and what we want to be. – David Grann
