Quotes from Walter Cronkite

The democratic system is challenged by the failure in television because our evening news programmes have gone for an attempt to entertain as much as to inform in the desperate fight for ratings.

I had as much time to prepare for that moon landing as NASA did, and I still was speechless when it happened. It just was so awe-inspiring to actually be able to see the thing through the television that was a miracle in itself.

When I stepped down from the evening news at the age of 65, in '81, things were still going well. Immediately after that, the whole tenor of the CBS News Department changed.

I never ceased to be surprised when southern whites, at their homes or clubs, told racial jokes and spoke so derogatorily of blacks while longtime servants, for whom they quite clearly had some affection, were well within earshot.

Success is more permanent when you achieve it without destroying your principles.

Advertising's always been a considerable pressure on publishers.

I write pretty quickly. Write pretty fast. I was an old press service man. That was part of the necessity of that occupation.

I haven't quite got the hang of this retirement thing.

A liberal to me is one who - and it suits some of the dictionary definitions - is unbeholden to any specific belief or party or group or person, but makes up his or her mind on the basis of the facts and the presentation of those facts at the time. That defines what I am.

There is a compulsion that is perhaps the heart of life's meanings, this marvelous mystery of blood ties that brings joy whenever a new family member comes on the scene.

Dan Rather and I just aren't especially chummy.

I can't go into a mob scene and sense the mood and the attitude of the crowd. I can't conduct man-on-the-street interviews or even get reactions that I can be sure are honest, because they know who I am.

I've got a 12-year-old grandson who, when he was 3 years old, before he could say many other words, could name the different kinds of dinosaurs.

Journalism is what we need to make democracy work.

If, as they say, the threat of the hangman's noose has a powerful way of focusing one's attention, the same can be said of pregnancy.

We cannot defer this responsibility to posterity. Time will not wait.

There's a little more ego involved in these jobs than people might realize.

I think we are realizing that we are going to have to have an international rule of law.

I record it here today to establish my early predisposition to editorial work - to be both pontifical and wrong.

Beyond being timely, an obituary has a more subjective duty: to assess its subject's impact.

Everything is being compressed into tiny tablets. You take a little pill of news every day - 23 minutes - and that's supposed to be enough.

I think there are a lot of good pieces that can be covered in 20 minutes that don't need an hour, but by the same token, there are things that need an hour or more.

I worry that we're not getting enough of the news that we need to make informed judgments as citizens.

I think people make way too much of ratings.