Quotes By Mike Wallace

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.

To go around the world, to talk to almost anybody you want to talk to, to have enough time on the air, so that you could really tell a full story. What a voyage of discovery it was.

As I approach my 88th birthday, it's become apparent to me that my eyes and ears, among other appurtenances, aren't quite what they used to be. The prospect of long flights to wherever in search of whatever are not quite as appealing.

In making the jump from a local program to the showcase of a coast-to-coast broadcast, Ted Yates and I were determined to maintain the candid, sometimes combative style we'd introduced on 'Night Beat.' But that proved easier said than done.

I have no doubt that what we started has become a plague. Because - and that's a million years ago but we got caught up in the drama more than we caught up in going after the facts.

I even asked Eleanor Roosevelt difficult questions and she loved it.

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.

You're not a nutcase if you want to go see a psychiatrist.

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 love the urgency of what we do. I like the battles that take place, the jousting.

I went to work when I was a young fellow and I loved what I did. And I just kept working. And when I decided that maybe the time had come for me to quit, I got depressed. What could I do if I didn't work?

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

I'm nearing the end of the road and still learning.

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

I cared enough to read and look at and worry about the questions.

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.

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

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.

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.

I'm just not that comfortable writing so much about myself.