Bob Woodward

“If information is true, if it can be verified, and if it's really important, the newspaper needs to be willing to take the risk associated with using unidentified sources.”

“People like to pigeonhole and say, Well, I'm a Washington insider, and you know, that's quite silly. What does that even mean?”

“The source known as Deep Throat provided a kind of road map through the scandal. His one consistent message was that the Watergate burglary was just the tip of the iceberg.”

“If you interviewed 1,000 politicians and asked about whether the media's too soft or too hard, about 999 would say too hard.”

“I don't think voters give a hoot about the character of their political advisors, except to the extent that character reflects on the candidates.”

“Any suggestion that I'm writing about political operatives because I'm interested in political operatives misses the entire point.”

“Suppose Watergate had not been uncovered? I'd still be on the City Desk.”

“Deep Throat was a very unfortunate name given to the source by the managing editor of The Washington Post.”

“Way before Watergate, senior administration officials hid behind anonymity.”

“Nixon had some large achievements in foreign affairs. They will be remembered. But a president probably gets remembered for one thing, and Watergate will head the Nixon list, I suspect.”

“We need to police ourselves in the media.”

“I think journalism gets measured by the quality of information it presents, not the drama or the pyrotechnics associated with us.”

“When you hear in the tape recordings Nixon's own voice saying, We have to stonewall, We have to lie to the Grand Jury, We have to pay burglars a million dollars, it's all too clear the horror of what went on.”

“I deal with first-hand sources. And give the people, even John Sununu, the opportunity to respond to what I've been told by first-hand sources.”

“Lawyers didn't seriously get involved in the Watergate stories until quite late, when we realized we were on to something.”

“Nixon's attempts to order subversion of various departments was bound to come out in some form.”

“It was accountability that Nixon feared.”

“Not a season passes without new disclosures showing Nixon's numerous attempts at criminal use of his presidential powers and in fact the scorn he held for the rule of law.”

“When you practice reporting for as long as I have, you keep yourself at a distance from True Believers. Either conservatives or liberals or Democrats or Republicans.”

“I have written things that Republicans and Democrats and all kinds of figures have either hated or felt very uncomfortable about. Because in doing these long projects and books, you get close to the bone. And they're not calling me up and asking me for dinner.”