Mike Wallace Quotes

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Mike Wallace

Profession : Journalist

Birth : May 9, 1918

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.

Mike Wallace

In making the jump from a local program to the showcase of a coast-to-coast broadcast, Ted Yates and I were determined to maintain the candid, sometimes combative style we'd introduced on 'Night Beat.' But that proved easier said than done.

Mike Wallace

Jack Kennedy was one year older than I was, and we attended the same neighborhood school.

Mike Wallace

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.

Mike Wallace

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.

Mike Wallace

Retiring is one thing. Being retired is something else altogether.

Mike Wallace

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.

Mike Wallace

You want to put a man at ease.

Mike Wallace

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

Mike Wallace

I'm just not that comfortable writing so much about myself.

Mike Wallace

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.'

Mike Wallace

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

Mike Wallace

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.'

Mike Wallace

When I came to CBS it was the mother church. I mean that was - everybody wanted to go to work for CBS News.

Mike Wallace

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

Mike Wallace

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.

Mike Wallace

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.

Mike Wallace

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.

Mike Wallace

I'm nearing the end of the road and still learning.

Mike Wallace

I feel fulfilled when we've revealed a person.

Mike Wallace