Quotes from Bob Schieffer

My bladder cancer was related to smoking, and I think smoking kills people.

I can't think of any other job in journalism where the newsmakers come to you.

And as a result, I guess I'm just kind of a rubberneck. I'm kind of a - someone who likes to see things and likes to see these events and talk to the people who make them happen. But I don't think journalists are as important as the people they cover.

But here's the deal: If I were smart, I could figure out curling. If I were even smarter, I could figure out why people would actually watch other people doing it. I have tried. I can't. I can't even figure out the object of the game. Is it like darts? I just don't get it.

One thing young people have to always keep in mind when deciding what they want to do with their lives is, is it fun? Is it something that I'm interested in? Is it something I enjoy?

The truth is the Super Bowl long ago became more than just a football game. It's part of our culture like turkey at Thanksgiving and lights at Christmas, and like those holidays beyond their meaning, a factor in our economy.

For sure, the American people have access to more information now than any other people who have ever lived on earth. And I think we do a pretty good job of sorting out what's important.

But if you don't enjoy doing something, you'll be miserable no matter how much money you make.

With Vietman, we found ourselves involved there before we really understood what was going on.

American politics used to be an amateur sport. But somewhere along the way, we handed over to professionals all the things people used to do for free.

But if you're going to go out on a military unit, you've got to allow yourself to be under the control of the commander because you really could put the troops in danger.

I want to try to talk like normal people talk, not just stand there and bark at the camera.

Nowadays I'm not even sure if newspapers take into account whether a person is a good writer.

The Iraq war was fought by one-half of one percent of us. And unless we were part of that small group or had a relative who was, we went about our lives as usual most of the time: no draft, no new taxes, no changes. Not so for the small group who fought the war and their families.

I always thought writing was the foundation and the basis for journalism in the same way being able to draw is the foundation for art.

I had an idea in the beginning to do a book about some of the events that I had covered, just various stories that I've covered. Reporters spend a lot of time telling each other tales about how they covered stories, and that's what this book started out to be.

Once we get them in the studio, you interview a person the same way you would interview another. You ask them a question. You let them answer. You try to listen closely and then ask a follow-up.

If you get asked a really tough question and you give a really good answer, you come off looking really good.

Had there been a reporter along with Lieutenant Calley when he massacred those people in Vietnam, I think that probably wouldn't have happened.

We're far from perfect. It's a human enterprise.

But with 9/11, we found that people tended to come back to the networks and the people who had been our core viewers in the past came back and they have stayed with us.