I became a journalist to come as close as possible to the heart of the world.

Business, more than any other occupation, is a continual dealing with the future; it is a continual calculation, an instinctive exercise in foresight.

Time should make enemies and Life should make friends.

Publishing is a business, but journalism never was and is not essentially a business. Nor is it a profession.

The world of the 20th century, if it is to come to life in any viability of health and vigor, must be to a significant degree an American century.

I suggest that what we want to do is not to leave to posterity a great institution, but to leave behind a great tradition of journalism ably practiced in our time.

It's easier to teach a poet how to read a balance sheet than it is to teach an accountant how to write.

Not much longer shall we have time for reading lessons of the past. An inexorable present calls us to the defense of a great future.

Show me a man who claims he is objective and I'll show you a man with illusions.

There are men who can write poetry, and there are men who can read balance sheets. The men who can read balance sheets cannot write.

To see, and to show, is the mission now undertaken by Life.

Music is, to me, proof of the existence of God. It is so extraordinarily full of magic, and in tough times of my life I can listen to music and it makes such a difference.

Libraries raised me.

There is no good day or bad day, only good or bad actions.

As soon as you look at the world through an ideology, you are finished. No reality fits ideology.

Every walk to the woods is a religious rite, every bath in the stream is a saving ordinance. Communion service is at all hours, and the bread and wine are from the heart and marrow of Mother Earth.

Lies are attempts to hide the truth by willfully denying facts. Fiction, on the other hand, is an attempt to reveal the truth by ignoring facts.

People do think I'm Jewish. But we're Irish Catholic. My father had a brogue.

The phrase "singular incredible life" seems to me that it applies more appropriately to Jane Goodall or David Attenborough, people I regard with awe and who stand for great humanism and knowledge.

The questions are always more important than the answers.

The business (and person) who tries to be everything to everyone ends up being nothing to anyone.