A quote that is not a complete sentence is still a quote.

> Every quote need not be a complete sentence or paragraph, but including almost none strikes me as poor journalism. A good writer would include a bit more information and give Alexander's statements a chance to speak for themselves.

The kind of journalism that has lots of long quotes like that is called an interview. This article was not an interview, nor could it have possibly been, because Scott Alexander refused to be interviewed.

It's incredibly weak to criticize something for not happening to be the random thing you decided it should be instead. You might as well criticize the NYT for publishing this article as a newspaper story and not as a thick book.