Quotes from Mike Wallace

It's astonishing what you learn and feel and see along the way. That's why a reporter's job, as you know, is such a joy.

Even a liberal reporter is a patriot, wants the best for this country. And people, your fair and balanced friends at Fox, don't fully understand that.

I'm a reporter; you can't subpoena people to talk to you. If you write to them and try to call them on the phone and they don't answer or so forth, then take them unawares.

My parents came from Russia and suddenly they wound up in Boston, Massachusetts, Brookline, Massachusetts and they felt the sun rose and set on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's backside because he meant so much to them. This was freedom. This was something totally different from the Russia they had left.

All I'm armed with is research.

The problem became this: We became a caricature of ourselves. We were after light, and it began to look as though we were after heat, not to reveal some information or not to find out the story.

Yeah, I was a pretty good kid, you know, I was - I was- I was an overachiever and I worked very hard, played a hell of a fiddle.

I used to have acne when I was a kid growing up. You can imagine how serious that was in making you feel bad. And I had skinny bow legs. I mean, as a kid growing up, I was an insecure fella.

I did game shows, I did interview shows, I did talk shows, I did commercials, I did acting. But all of that was a million years ago.

We used to sit around and chortle, 'Look what this guy said five years ago, and today look what he's doing. Let's stick it to him!' It's as simple as that, I swear.

I was always nosy and can you imagine a better 60 years, 40 of which or 37 of which traveling any place in the world.

Can you imagine the most trusted man in America? Cronkite deserved it too.

Covering Richard Nixon's triumphant run in 1968 turned out to be my last major assignment as a general correspondent for CBS News. In September of that year, '60 Minutes' made its debut and I began the best, the most fulfilling job a reporter could imagine.

Retiring is one thing. Being retired is something else altogether.

I cannot improve on those spoken for many years by a true legend who preceded me at CBS News. He would say, simply, 'good night, and good luck.'

There's not a better job in journalism than the one we have, seriously on '60 Minutes' - not a better job.

Motivation triggers luck.

Jack Kennedy was one year older than I was, and we attended the same neighborhood school.

When I came to CBS it was the mother church. I mean that was - everybody wanted to go to work for CBS News.

You know, you become crazy. I had done a story for '60 Minutes' on depression previously, but I had no idea that I was now experiencing it. Finally, I collapsed and just went to bed.

When I went to Ann Arbor, University of Michigan, what I really wanted to be was a radio announcer.

Rooney, of course, he believes that he is the reason that people stick around all the way through the show. They'll put up with anything, you know, in order to get to Rooney, and that's why we're at number 16 or 14 or whatever.

I had my hearing aid fixed today so that I could properly hear you. I can't see as well. I now have - this has stopped me from smoking - a pacemaker, have for about the last 15 years. No, I don't like getting old.

You want to put a man at ease.