Susan Stamberg

I still sketch for relaxation and I still play the piano.

And what I really love to do is read novels.

It's what I did in college as an English major.

And I come to events of life against that background.

I'm not a journalist in that formal way, and I've never had any fancy journalistic training.

So what I want to know when hostages are taken is what difference does it make to the life of Mrs. Moorfield out in where was she in San Diego?

California.

I want to know the difference that that event is making in her life.

I want to know the difference it's making in all of our lives as citizens living here, the idea that that many Americans are being held in some foreign country by a very frightening group of people.

What does that tell us about ourselves?

How does it change our perceptions of ourselves?

So it's that that I mean, that kind of tension.

and conflict, and the effect on personality and character is much more interesting to me.

And I come to news that way.

Something else I wrote was when I did a national column with President Carter.

I sat for two hours in the Oval Office with him while people all over the country phoned in.

People afterwards said to me, gee, that must have been the high point of your career.

But I was far more absorbed by changes in his eyes and what happened to his complexion when he was dealing with a difficult question and how his posture changed and he sat up straight or he clenched his hands much more than any of the words he was speaking because those were words he'd spoken a lot before, many, many times before.

But that glimpse of character, that to me was special and that's what interests me the most.

I don't know.