Quotes By Mike Wallace

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.

You want to put a man at ease.

You know, you become crazy. I had done a story for '60 Minutes' on depression previously, but I had no idea that I was now experiencing it. Finally, I collapsed and just went to bed.

I used to have acne when I was a kid growing up. You can imagine how serious that was in making you feel bad. And I had skinny bow legs. I mean, as a kid growing up, I was an insecure fella.

There's nothing, repeat, nothing to be ashamed of when you're going through a depression. If you get help, the chances of your licking it are really good. But, you have to get yourself onto a safe path.

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.

I never was the story. The story was the story. Period.

I feel fulfilled when we've revealed a person.

But I was never, you know, when I see some kids today who are close to their parents, close to their friends... I think it's simply wonderful. I was not a happy kid. Back in those days, I remember the sick, gray days were better. Because when it was sunny I'd feel worse.

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 did what I felt that I wanted to do. Fairly selfishly. I didn't know my kids as well as I should have.

Can you imagine the most trusted man in America? Cronkite deserved it too.

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.

Yeah, I was a pretty good kid, you know, I was - I was- I was an overachiever and I worked very hard, played a hell of a fiddle.

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.'

If there's anything that's important to a reporter, it is integrity. It is credibility.

When I went to Ann Arbor, University of Michigan, what I really wanted to be was a radio announcer.

I don't think I have the face - may have the voice but not the demeanor for an anchor. And I defied it.

Even though Jack Kennedy and I were about the same age and lived in the same neighborhood and attended the same elementary school, our paths seldom crossed during the years he lived in Brookline. I'm sure that in time, I would have gotten to know him better if he hadn't moved away.

We were the first people who did investigative stuff, who asked occasionally abrasive, occasionally confrontational questions.

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.

My parents came from Russia and suddenly they wound up in Boston, Massachusetts, Brookline, Massachusetts and they felt the sun rose and set on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's backside because he meant so much to them. This was freedom. This was something totally different from the Russia they had left.

I read rip-and-read news, but I wasn't a reporter. I was reading the wire, and the other thing was, I was reading commercials - and I could do a hell of a commercial.

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.

Let the answer hang there for two or three or four seconds.

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.'

Covering Richard Nixon's triumphant run in 1968 turned out to be my last major assignment as a general correspondent for CBS News. In September of that year, '60 Minutes' made its debut and I began the best, the most fulfilling job a reporter could imagine.

All I'm armed with is research.

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.