Ed Bradley

“I would listen to how they told the story, to what elements they used, to how it sounded, and that's who I patterned myself after, the people who were on CBS News.”

“And I always found that the harder I worked, the better my luck was, because I was prepared for that.”

“I made the decision to come back to New York, quit my job and move to Paris.”

“My mother worked in factories, worked as a domestic, worked in a restaurant, always had a second job.”

“My uncle was a hero, Lewis Roundtree. He was not even related to me really, but he was always called my uncle. He was like a father to me. I was closer to him than I was my father.”

“Probably my mother. She was a very compassionate woman, and always kept me on my feet. And I think part of it is just the way you are, the way you're raised. And she had the responsibility for raising me.”

“So I just got on the phone and the engineer just patched me in and I did reports. I'd get a community leader and bring him to the phone, call up the station and do an interview over the phone with the guy.”

“I will not go into a story unprepared. I will do my homework, and that's something I learned at an early age.”

“And I realized that there was no sports reporter, so I started covering sporting events.”

“Then I learned how to do wraparounds and things like that. I had no experience.”

“That's when I hit the ground. So in the instant that that round landed and blew me in the air, I had those separate and distinct thoughts. The guy who was standing right next to where I had been standing had a hole in his back I could put my fist into.”

“You know, I think I still have a sense that no matter what you do, no matter what you achieve, no matter how much success you have, no matter how much money you have, relationships are important.”

“I knew that God put me on this earth to be on the radio.”

“Be prepared, work hard, and hope for a little luck. Recognize that the harder you work and the better prepared you are, the more luck you might have.”

“The only thing I'd ever done with news was to read copy sitting at the microphone in the studio.”

“I did anything that would get me on the air.”

“There was no one around me who didn't work hard.”

“Professionally, I remember Cronkite as a kid growing up, and more so for me, the importance of Cronkite was not him sitting there at the anchor desk, but him out there doing things.”

“The people in your life are important. Meaningful relationships with those people are very important.”

“I had a lot of fun in Cambodia, much more so in Cambodia than Vietnam.”