Blank on Blank

"I'm sorry, I‘m a coward. I didn’t want to die." - Patty Hearst in 1982 in the first interview she gave after getting out of prison. Lawrence Grobel explained how he became the lucky journalist to get the Patty Hearst interview for Playboy after she had served two years in prison before President Jimmy Carter commuted her sentence.

"He’s a natural raconteur. A great one. You just get out of the way and let him do his thing, perform. If you can nudge the jokes along, so much the better." - Chris Roberts on interviewing Tom Waits.

In the 1960s, Hunter S. Thompson spent more than a year living and drinking with members of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle club, riding up and down the California coast.

"I did as much as I could do at that time in my life ... I tried as hard as I could and I couldn't do better" - Dustin Hoffman in 1971. Interview by Milton Hoffman from the Pacifica Radio Archives. We came across this rarely heard interview with Dustin Hoffman recorded in 1971.

"I have innate confidence that I am right. Partially out of conviction and partially as a pose." - Roger Ebert in 1990. This episode contains excerpts of Lawrence Grobel's extended interviews with Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel in 1990. The famous duo worked side-by-side from 1975 until Siskel’s death in 1999, co-hosting the acclaimed show Siskel & Ebert.

"My singing… i'll just say it simple as possible: it's just godly." - Michael Jackson in January 1980. Michael Jackson's rules: the interviewer had to ask his questions to 13-year old Janet Jackson who then relayed them to Michael.

"It's very humbling to imagine somebody else's, really life and their pain ... It's my drug" - Meryl Streep, Interview by Christine Spines, 2008

"I was not the son he wanted to have." - Tim Gunn Interview by Danielle Sacks, Fast Company Magazine, Spring 2008

Interview by Howard Smith, September 30, 1970. By phone, TheSmithTapes.com

"If this Revolution falls, what we will have here in Cuba is a hell. Hell itself." - Fidel Castro, Interview by Clark Hewitt Galloway. 1959, Havana

"I've got on these stiletto heels aimed for his face." - Farrah Fawcett

Interview by Howard Smith, TheSmithTapes.com / Villagevoice.com, Los Angeles, 1969