Seymour Hersh Quotes

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Seymour Hersh

Profession : Journalist

Birth : April 8, 1937

I hate to see the way journalism is devalued: We have to feed the machine; we have to feed the Trump outrage machine, to feed the anger against Trump, to feed the New York liberal anger.

Seymour Hersh

I can't fudge what I write. But I can certainly fudge what I say.

Seymour Hersh

Tracking down people who did not want to be found was vital to what I did for a living, and I was good at it.

Seymour Hersh

Bush can talk about 100,000 people wanting to go work in the police or in the army. It's because there's nothing else for them to do. They're willing to stand in line to get bombed because they want to take care of their family.

Seymour Hersh

I'm a better American than 99% of the guys in the White House.

Seymour Hersh

It doesn't matter that Bush scares the hell out of me. What matters is that he scares the hell out of a lot of very important people in Washington who can't speak out, in the military, in the intelligence community.

Seymour Hersh

I don't think much of the journalism that I see.

Seymour Hersh

If you think I write stories where it is all right to just be good enough, are you kidding? You think I have a cavalier attitude on throwing stuff out? Are you kidding? I am not cavalier about what I do for a living.

Seymour Hersh

Maybe I am not an easy guy.

Seymour Hersh

I have always been a freelancer. I always work for myself.

Seymour Hersh

I don't necessarily buy the story that Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11.

Seymour Hersh

I have this sort of heuristic view that journalism, we possibly offer hope because the world is clearly run by total nincompoops more than ever... Not that journalism is always wonderful - it's not - but at least we offer some way out, some integrity.

Seymour Hersh

I say to people, 'Do you have any idea how hard it is to do that, to write 7,000 words in 10 hours or 12 hours for the front page of the 'New York Times' and to know that they trust you so much that that it's going to lead the paper?' It's hard. I mean, it's a feat.

Seymour Hersh

I wrote a lot about Cheney in 'The New Yorker,' but I wrote very little of what I know. The only time I ever mentioned what he ever said at a meeting was when there were many people there who were not insiders, you know, other people not in the government, so my sources would be protected.

Seymour Hersh

I didn't know I was gonna be a writer when I started out.

Seymour Hersh

Writing about corporate America had sapped my energy, disappointed the editors, and unnerved me.

Seymour Hersh

Most of the important secrets that I've known about, the real secrets that are known about aren't worth publishing.

Seymour Hersh

I'm not convinced that every secret has to be published. I think there are secrets worth keeping, and I think there are secrets not worth keeping.

Seymour Hersh

I don't think I've ever met a public official that didn't think he was doing the right thing. I can't think of one.

Seymour Hersh

I think the moment anybody seriously tampers with the First Amendment, you're going to see an outcry.

Seymour Hersh