David Brooks

And EJ and I have been joined at the hip for many decades.

And, you know, one of the things that...

I was a lucky break for me.

A lot of things were lucky breaks.

One, I had a grandfather who knew how to write.

And as I mentioned, my final column, love to write letters to the editor of the New York Times.

It was just so moving when I got this job to go from the kid he was in Lower East Side, going to City College, free college in New York, to working at the New York Times.

That's a great American story.

Another lucky break was I found my heroes early on.

And I think both of you may share a bit of this if you haven't put it this way.

I realized that in the 1950s and 1960s, there were a group of writers who were slightly above like normal journalism and below academia.

And they were people like Jane Jacobs and Rachel Carson and Digby Baltzell and Daniel Bell.

Vance Packard.

Vance Packard.

Your role model originally.

And so I said, that's where I want to be.

And so I think I've tried to do that for the rest of my career and I will continue to do that.

Well, it hasn't gotten any easier to write.

I can tell you that.

I think I've changed an enormous amount.