Bob Schieffer Quotes

I think journalism is a great way to do public service, to have an impact on your community.

- Bob Schieffer

Once we get them in the studio, you interview a person the same way you would interview another. You ask them a question. You let them answer. You try to listen closely and then ask a follow-up.

- Bob Schieffer

Well, you know, in any political campaign, you're gonna have people on one side that are gonna slip a reporter something because they think it'll hurt the guy on the other side.

- Bob Schieffer

And after about two years, I realized that creative writing was not going to help you ace those biological tests. So I switched over to journalism. I didn't graduate with honors, but I did graduate on time and with some doing.

- Bob Schieffer

But here's the deal: If I were smart, I could figure out curling. If I were even smarter, I could figure out why people would actually watch other people doing it. I have tried. I can't. I can't even figure out the object of the game. Is it like darts? I just don't get it.

- Bob Schieffer

It's no longer just reporting the headlines of the day, but trying to put the headlines into some context and to add some perspective into what they mean.

- Bob Schieffer

They've asked me to do this temporarily. I don't know what temporarily means. Life is temporary.

- Bob Schieffer

Obviously, if the commander makes certain decisions that the reporter thinks is inhibiting his right to report a legitimate story, he has to appeal to the commander's boss to get that changed.

- Bob Schieffer

The government's view is that the best time to announce bad news, news that it doesn't want the public to dwell on is late on a Friday, when it will wind up in the Saturday papers, which if you were readers, then the week day editions. A holiday weekend is even better.

- Bob Schieffer

The truth is the Super Bowl long ago became more than just a football game. It's part of our culture like turkey at Thanksgiving and lights at Christmas, and like those holidays beyond their meaning, a factor in our economy.

- Bob Schieffer

Any time you get into a presidential campaign and the stakes are so high, all candidates - they want to be in complete control whenever they can. And you can't blame them for that.

- Bob Schieffer

The Iraq war was fought by one-half of one percent of us. And unless we were part of that small group or had a relative who was, we went about our lives as usual most of the time: no draft, no new taxes, no changes. Not so for the small group who fought the war and their families.

- Bob Schieffer

In so many of the other beats these days, there are these layers of public relations people that you have to go through to get to the newsmakers themselves.

- Bob Schieffer

I've had a lot of fun, and when I talk to kids in journalism schools, I say, look, I know what the journalism teachers tell you that this is a great way to perform public service and all that, but I say the main reason, if you decide what you want to do is be a reporter, the main reason you want to do it is because it's just so much fun.

- Bob Schieffer

But the reporter has the responsibility to determine, number one, whether that is true, and number two, to make a judgment as to whether it's in the public interest and whether or not it should be part of the debate.

- Bob Schieffer

The best thing about the Congress is that it is the last place where you can have face-to-face interviews and interaction with the newsmakers themselves.

- Bob Schieffer

I can't think of any other job in journalism where the newsmakers come to you.

- Bob Schieffer

I always thought writing was the foundation and the basis for journalism in the same way being able to draw is the foundation for art.

- Bob Schieffer

At the White House, everybody works for the same person. They're all part of the same company. But on Capitol Hill, they're all independent contractors. They all work for themselves. That's a formula for getting news.

- Bob Schieffer

With Vietman, we found ourselves involved there before we really understood what was going on.

- Bob Schieffer

We now assume that when people turn on the evening news, they basically already know what the news is. They've heard it on the radio. They've seen it on the Internet. They've seen it on one of the cable companies. So that makes our job a bit different.

- Bob Schieffer

I had an idea in the beginning to do a book about some of the events that I had covered, just various stories that I've covered. Reporters spend a lot of time telling each other tales about how they covered stories, and that's what this book started out to be.

- Bob Schieffer

I want to try to talk like normal people talk, not just stand there and bark at the camera.

- Bob Schieffer

There's fierce competition between all the networks to get the guest who can bring the most pertinent information about whatever the story of the moment happens to be.

- Bob Schieffer

I had - all my life, everybody who knew me thought that I would probably grow up to be a reporter, a newspaper reporter because we didn't have much television in those days.

- Bob Schieffer

I mean, you know, God knows everything, but I'm not quite that good. Every once in a while, something will slip by me.

- Bob Schieffer

Nowadays I'm not even sure if newspapers take into account whether a person is a good writer.

- Bob Schieffer

People are more sophisticated in the way they go about dealing with the press.

- Bob Schieffer

My bladder cancer was related to smoking, and I think smoking kills people.

- Bob Schieffer

But with 9/11, we found that people tended to come back to the networks and the people who had been our core viewers in the past came back and they have stayed with us.

- Bob Schieffer

Had there been a reporter along with Lieutenant Calley when he massacred those people in Vietnam, I think that probably wouldn't have happened.

- Bob Schieffer

One thing young people have to always keep in mind when deciding what they want to do with their lives is, is it fun? Is it something that I'm interested in? Is it something I enjoy?

- Bob Schieffer

My job is to give everyone a chance to catch their breath and step back from all this and get back to work.

- Bob Schieffer

And as a result, I guess I'm just kind of a rubberneck. I'm kind of a - someone who likes to see things and likes to see these events and talk to the people who make them happen. But I don't think journalists are as important as the people they cover.

- Bob Schieffer

And I came away from that experience, and it was a very difficult experience - I came to understand that you have to practice at being a good father and practice at being a good husband, just as you have to practice at being a good journalist.

- Bob Schieffer

I used to be a print reporter.

- Bob Schieffer

But if you're going to go out on a military unit, you've got to allow yourself to be under the control of the commander because you really could put the troops in danger.

- Bob Schieffer

American politics used to be an amateur sport. But somewhere along the way, we handed over to professionals all the things people used to do for free.

- Bob Schieffer

For sure, the American people have access to more information now than any other people who have ever lived on earth. And I think we do a pretty good job of sorting out what's important.

- Bob Schieffer

But if you don't enjoy doing something, you'll be miserable no matter how much money you make.

- Bob Schieffer

It's getting the right person that's the challenge.

- Bob Schieffer

We're far from perfect. It's a human enterprise.

- Bob Schieffer