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A. None. What is objectivity? I hate the word objectivity. I always use the words honest and correct.
Q. Why do you provoke your subjects to such anger and emotion? Fellini called you a rude little bitch.
A. Yes, and I called him a dirty liar.
I provoke them because I get involved, because my interviews are never cold, because I fall in love with the person who is in front of me, even if I hate him or her. An interview is a love story for me. It's a fight. It's a coitus.
Q. Do you ever use sex, feminine attraction, as a weapon?
A. No, I have never done that in my life. When I go to these people, I am terribly serious, I'm dressed in the most anti-sexy way, often badly combed, no lipstick. You see, this is not only a matter of professional pride. It's also, let's say, a political choice, a form of advanced feminism.
Q. Here comes a brutal question . . .
A. Bravo! Go ahead, go ahead, pronounce it with love.
Q. Don't you actually relish war and conflict?
A. No, war is a vomiting thing. It's a disgusting thing. I was curious to see the war [in Viet Nam]. When I did, I got a profound nausea. There is only one thing, that when the danger is over and nothing has happened to you, you feel twice alive. Every piece of you, your nose, your hair, everything feels alive and you are so surprised and excited. It's very exciting, that, nearly like being drunk ... but I don't need war.
Q. I'm going to ask about your personal life. You aren't a lesbian, are you?
A. Oh, my God! Oh, mamma mia!
No, scusa, it's obvious I'm not a lesbian, but it's offensive to answer "No" be cause I feel guilty in something. My liberalism ends when we come to the queers and lesbians. I cannot stand them. And if I say it in a loud voice, they say I'm a fascist, a reactionary.
Q. Why are you so pessimistic about marriage, as you've been quoted?
A. In a marriage there is always a padrone, a master, and it is not necessarily the man. I believe in freedom.
Q. We've read that you've suffered a great deal, that you've had three miscarriages, that you cannot have children.
Is that true?
A. I never said that. This was at tributed to me by a dishonest woman journalist [New York Times Reporter Judy Klemesrud, who insists that Fallaci admitted to the miscarriages]. I was speaking about my new book — Letter to a Child Never Born — and the beauty and curse of being able to become a mother, and that you die a little less if you leave a child. I tried to put it in this very poetic way, and then she says, "So, you had three miscarriages!" She was big turd.
Q. Then it isn't true?
A. No.
Q. Do you hope to have a child?
A. Yes, I still hope. No, no, I have lost all the children I wanted to have.
And this book conies from personal experience, of course. It would be idiotic to deny that. Look, it's another issue like lesbianism. I've never had an abortion in my life. But I can't say so, because if I do, I'll be accused of taking sides with the priests.
Q. Finally, if you were to be convinced that God exists and you were to interview him, what would you ask?