Ben Bradlee Quotes

It changes your life, the pursuit of truth.

The first rough draft of history.

As a child, one looks for compliments. As an adult, one looks for evidence of effectiveness.

There is nothing like daily journalism! Best damn job in the world!

The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.

The biggest difference between Kennedy and Nixon, as far as the press is concerned, is simply this: Jack Kennedy really liked newspaper people and he really enjoyed sparring with journalists.

It is my experience that most claims of national security are part of a campaign to avoid telling the truth.

Sure, some journalists use anonymous sources just because they’re lazy, and I think editors ought to insist on more precise identification even if they remain anonymous.

You never monkey with the truth.

Hire people smarter than you are and encourage them to bloom.

The Nixon administration really put a lot of pressure on CBS not to run the second broadcast.

Everybody who talks to a newspaper has a motive. That's just a given. And good reporters always, repeat always, probe to find out what that motive is.

If an investigative reporter finds out that someone has been robbing the store, that may be 'gotcha' journalism, but it's also good journalism.

The champagne was flowing like the Potomac in flood.

Our best today; better tomorrow.

In the perfect world every source could be identified, but like the man said, "It's not a perfect world."

I think he had a strange, passionate devotion to the truth and a horror at what he saw going on.

I do worry about how newspapers respond to falling circulation figures. I'm not sure that the answer is for newspapers to try to cater to whatever seems to be the fad of the day.

It changes your life, the pursuit of truth, if you know that you have tried to find the truth and gone past the first apparent truth towards the real truth. It's very, it's very exciting.

Those [Watergate] tapes are going to take me to my grave with a huge smile on my face.

There will always be leaks; in Washington, everywhere.

Maybe some of today's papers have too many 'feel-good' features, but there is a lot of good news out there.

Generals who can write always make me nervous.

I never believed that Nixon could fully resurrect himself. And the proof of that was in the obits.

Cherchez la femme" is good advice for investigative reporters. "Follow the money" is even better advice.