Yesterday Cormac McCarthy made his debut television appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show and AP’s Hillel Italie has the details. The 73-year-old McCarthy has spoken with the press just twice before – both times for print publications – in the past 40 years, but he opened up for Winfrey. The author said he has nothing against the media; he just doesn’t like talking about what he does – a trait Winfrey illustrated with a story about how McCarthy, when he had no money years ago, refused a speaking engagement that would have paid him $2,000. “You work your side of the street, I’ll work mine,” he said in the interview, taped at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico.
Ed Park liveblogged McCarthy’s appearance, taking down many memorable quotes such as this exchange:
O: Are you just not interested in material [things]?
C: They take a distant second place to living your life and doing what you want to do… I always knew I didn’t want to work….It was my number one priority.
O: So you have worked at…not working.
C: Absolutely.