Bob Schieffer Quotes

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

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.

Good policy always trumps bad public relations. And the best PR can't trump bad policy.

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.

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.

The government's view is that the best time to announce bad news, news that it doesn't want the public to dwell on is late on a Friday, when it will wind up in the Saturday papers, which if you were readers, then the week day editions. A holiday weekend is even better.

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.

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?

Well, you know, in any political campaign, you're gonna have people on one side that are gonna slip a reporter something because they think it'll hurt the guy on the other side.

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

When Sam Snead was asked how to putt, he said, 'Putt for one hundred dollars'.

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

I had the chance to make every possible mistake and figure out a way to recover from it. Once you realize there is life after mistakes, you gain a self-confidence that never goes away.

The best thing about the Congress is that it is the last place where you can have face-to-face interviews and interaction with the newsmakers themselves.

Any time you get into a presidential campaign and the stakes are so high, all candidates - they want to be in complete control whenever they can. And you can't blame them for that.

There's fierce competition between all the networks to get the guest who can bring the most pertinent information about whatever the story of the moment happens to be.

It's no longer just reporting the headlines of the day, but trying to put the headlines into some context and to add some perspective into what they mean.

Dean Owen did what a lot of reporters seem to have forgotten how to do these days, he asked the people who were there that awful day what they saw and how they felt. This is a must-read for anyone who wants a better understanding of what happened on the weekend that America lost its innocence. A terrific read.

We now assume that when people turn on the evening news, they basically already know what the news is. They've heard it on the radio. They've seen it on the Internet. They've seen it on one of the cable companies. So that makes our job a bit different.

He had this great curiosity. If there was a car wreck and Walter saw it, it would be like the first car wreck he ever saw in his life.

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 guess the worst snow was the Kennedy inauguration in 1960. Heavy snow.

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 used to be a print reporter.

I had - all my life, everybody who knew me thought that I would probably grow up to be a reporter, a newspaper reporter because we didn't have much television in those days.

And I came away from that experience, and it was a very difficult experience - I came to understand that you have to practice at being a good father and practice at being a good husband, just as you have to practice at being a good journalist.

I mean, you know, God knows everything, but I'm not quite that good. Every once in a while, something will slip by me.

They've asked me to do this temporarily. I don't know what temporarily means. Life is temporary.

Go vote now it will make you feel big and strong

Whether or not the President is sleeping well won't be a factor in his re-election. That will depend on what he does while he is awake.

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.

And after about two years, I realized that creative writing was not going to help you ace those biological tests. So I switched over to journalism. I didn't graduate with honors, but I did graduate on time and with some doing.

I think journalism is a great way to do public service, to have an impact on your community.

It's getting the right person that's the challenge.

A police reporter walks into the worst moment in someone's life on every single story that he covers. It's not like being a sports reporter. That's a great job and all that and takes certain skills. But, you know, they're glad to see you when you show up to cover the football game. Nobody is ever glad to see a police reporter when he shows up.

Obviously, if the commander makes certain decisions that the reporter thinks is inhibiting his right to report a legitimate story, he has to appeal to the commander's boss to get that changed.

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.

Talk about threats to national security
how about government so big, so complicated and so unmanageable, it cant get out of its own way?

My job is to give everyone a chance to catch their breath and step back from all this and get back to work.