A biography for Mike Wallacehasn’t been written yet.
“I'm a reporter; you can't subpoena people to talk to you. If you write to them and try to call them on the phone and they don't answer or so forth, then take them unawares.”
“In the best of all possible worlds, everybody would be honorable, but that's not the way the world works. Reputations for reporters are made by discovering things underneath that rock.”
“I was copeless. Not just hopeless, but copeless. I tried to keep on working because I was ashamed of acknowledging the fact that I was depressed. You don't use that word.”
“I did game shows, I did interview shows, I did talk shows, I did commercials, I did acting. But all of that was a million years ago.”
“There's not a better job in journalism than the one we have, seriously on '60 Minutes' - not a better job.”
“Jack Kennedy was one year older than I was, and we attended the same neighborhood school.”
“I don't think I have the face - may have the voice but not the demeanor for an anchor. And I defied it.”
“I had my hearing aid fixed today so that I could properly hear you. I can't see as well. I now have - this has stopped me from smoking - a pacemaker, have for about the last 15 years. No, I don't like getting old.”
“If there's anything that's important to a reporter, it is integrity. It is credibility.”
“I'm just not that comfortable writing so much about myself.”
“Even a liberal reporter is a patriot, wants the best for this country. And people, your fair and balanced friends at Fox, don't fully understand that.”
“I went to work when I was a young fellow and I loved what I did. And I just kept working. And when I decided that maybe the time had come for me to quit, I got depressed. What could I do if I didn't work?”
“I cannot improve on those spoken for many years by a true legend who preceded me at CBS News. He would say, simply, 'good night, and good luck.'”
“The problem became this: We became a caricature of ourselves. We were after light, and it began to look as though we were after heat, not to reveal some information or not to find out the story.”
“I met all these important people and did all these stories, but I always had such excellent producers and assistants. I could show up to interview a world leader or a criminal and they would have things so well prepared anyone could have done it. It wasn't about 'me,' it was about 'us.'”
“What's an ambush interview? You walk up to a fellow who you want to talk to, and he hasn't been - he hadn't been willing to talk to you before. You've sent him letters, and you've tried to talk to him on the phone. So you walk up to him on the street and ask him a question - that's an ambush?”
“I was always nosy and can you imagine a better 60 years, 40 of which or 37 of which traveling any place in the world.”
“We used to sit around and chortle, 'Look what this guy said five years ago, and today look what he's doing. Let's stick it to him!' It's as simple as that, I swear.”
“You're not a nutcase if you want to go see a psychiatrist.”
“I was so low that I wanted to exit. And I took a bunch of pills, and they were sleeping pills. And at least they would put me to sleep, and maybe I wouldn't wake up, and that was fine.”