Walter Cronkite

“I've got a 12-year-old grandson who, when he was 3 years old, before he could say many other words, could name the different kinds of dinosaurs.”

“Journalism is what we need to make democracy work.”

“Cable has come along; many all-news 24 hour cable outlets in the United States. They have cut deeply into the traditional networks' viewing audience.”

“Maybe I'm just a slow learner or something, but I like to have things laid out as plainly and simply as possible.”

“Under the Constitution, giving 'aid and comfort' to a wartime enemy can lead to a charge of treason.”

“I take a certain pride in having maintained a reputation for fast copy throughout my newspaper career. Fast-breaking stories left my typewriter in a hurry. Not great literature, perhaps, but fast, and usually accurate.”

“I have never voted a party line. I vote on the individual and the issues.”

“Part of the new morality of the '60s and '70s is a new attitude toward homosexuality. The homosexual men and women have organized to fight for acceptance and respectability.”

“I write pretty quickly. Write pretty fast. I was an old press service man. That was part of the necessity of that occupation.”

“The successful landing on the moon, very probably, is the best story.”

“Grandfather was an old-fashioned pharmacist who never ceased venting his resentment at the growing number of retail items the drugstore had to carry, and he would go into periods of fearful rage when the subject of chain stores was raised.”

“When you're bringing in a fairly unknown candidate challenging a sitting president, the population needs a lot more information than reduced coverage provides.”

“I can't go into a mob scene and sense the mood and the attitude of the crowd. I can't conduct man-on-the-street interviews or even get reactions that I can be sure are honest, because they know who I am.”

“A liberal to me is one who - and it suits some of the dictionary definitions - is unbeholden to any specific belief or party or group or person, but makes up his or her mind on the basis of the facts and the presentation of those facts at the time. That defines what I am.”

“I think it is absolutely essential in a democracy to have competition in the media, a lot of competition, and we seem to be moving away from that.”

“If, as they say, the threat of the hangman's noose has a powerful way of focusing one's attention, the same can be said of pregnancy.”

“I don't think it's in any way harmful, this marriage of media and politicians. I think it enhances the communications process considerably and makes it possible for the public to be far more aware, far more up-to-date on issues and the opposite sides of the issues.”

“I wouldn't give up on the U.N. yet.”

“I learned early on that in the real world, the masks of tragedy and comedy adorn the proscenium of every life.”

“I covered the Vietnam War. I remember the lies that were told, the lives that were lost - and the shock when, twenty years after the war ended, former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara admitted he knew it was a mistake all along.”