I've definitely written people e-mails telling them I've loved their stories, but that seems more like a professional journalist thing to do. Joel Stein More Quotes by Joel Stein More Quotes From Joel Stein You don't get anywhere without saying yes. Joel Stein saying-yes I never thought to look at the New York Times one, even though I knew people were pissed off. I've seen YouTube videos from people who are pissed off at me about that and that takes a lot of effort to go find. Joel Stein effort new-york people I don't read "letters" sections of magazines, but I'll read anyone's blog post about me. Joel Stein magazines posts letters I don't read the "letters" section of Time magazine. I think it's just my habit as a reader. I don't read comments on stories, in general. Joel Stein magazines stories thinking It's hard to discipline yourself not to explain yourself or apologize. Joel Stein explain-yourself apologizing discipline I've learned over time that every editor has told me when you're getting that much hate, you don't talk about it. You just kind of don't give it oxygen and let it go away. It's almost - not always, but almost - always the best policy. Joel Stein oxygen editors hate You don't really want an army of people making individual decisions. And I don't think I completely understood that until people gave me examples of what happens when your army takes over your government and it's like, "Oh, yeah, I guess you can't really have people make individual moral decisions." Joel Stein army government thinking People are different in different situations and people are different online than they are in real life. Joel Stein different real people When I get real big volumes of hate mail, it's usually because I wrote something poorly. But it's also because some group told people to e-mail me and those people didn't read the article, they read the post about what I wrote about. And they all e-mail me. And they all come around at the same time. Joel Stein hate real people The people who get places in life just say yes to everything. Joel Stein place-in-life people