Jessica Savitch quotes:

Never refuse an assignment except when there is a conflict of interest, a potential of danger to you or your family, or you hold a strongly biased attitude about the subject under focus.

The most important event I covered was the Panama Canal debate, which dragged on for months.

No matter how many goals you have achieved, you must set your sights on a higher one.

Television news is a delicate balance of serving public good and private gain.

In real life, events seem much less dramatic.

I don't exactly know what it means to be ready. A cake when the oven timer goes off? Am I fully baked, or only half-baked?

Our free enterprise system of disseminating information is collectively referred to as The Media. But there is no collective.

The relationship between talent and management is uneasy, at best.

News events are like Texas weather. If you don't like it, wait a minute.

My most lucrative job in college was a stint as the regional Dodge Girl.

A fact of modern life is that it takes women longer to get ready than men.

In interviews I gave early on in my career, I was quoted as saying it was possible to have it all: a dynamic job, marriage, and children. In some respects, I was a social adolescent.

Although I was entirely relaxed on camera, if I had to stand up and say something to an assembled group of people, I was rendered all but inarticulate.

You can easily die racing to cover a bank robbery as you can in a war zone.

Texas was defined by its larger-than-life characters, particularly politicians.

For every two minutes of glamour, there are eight hours of hard work.

Women were seldom given quality assignments or adequate air time.

The news anchor is exactly that - an anchor, a center, a focus.

I worked half my life to be an overnight success, and still it took me by surprise.

Walking into a room filled with people you don't know but who know you brings out your worst vulnerabilities.

News events cannot be controlled, nor can newscasts be mapped out like entertainment shows.

To get it first is important - but more important is to get it right.

What is the value of sticking a microphone in a man's face right after he has learned of his wife's death?

It had not occurred to me that marriage requires the same effort as a career. And unlike a career, marriage requires a joint effort.

When I first anchored in 1970, I had never seen a woman anchor a news show.

In every interview I have ever read or seen or taken part in, the final question in our future-oriented society is always, What next?

Women didn't want to watch other women on television because they were jealous of their husbands' diverted attention.

When I was a little girl in the 1950s, it would not have been possible for me to say, I want to be an anchorwoman when I grow up.

A press card does not provide you with an invisible shield. You're flesh and blood.

My current goal is to place a moratorium on goals.

By far my most perilous assignment was covering a tank car explosion.

The better the coverage, the more discriminating the viewer.

Every time I am in danger of believing the glamour of my own press, some incident inevitably brings me back to earth.

Shootouts are not gunfights of honor, they're gang wars and racial riots.

Mistakes are not always the result of someone's ineptitude.

It is my belief that one's salary is between an individual and the IRS.

How valuable NBC Magazine was in my career is questionable.

News reporting is a cycle: No matter how much you work at sending a message, it's only successful if it's received.

I have had a lifelong phobia of snakes.

Anyone who writes an autobiographical work at the age of 34 is, at best, presumptuous. It occurred to me that it was time to set the record straight.

The code of the road is, if there is anything to eat, eat; if there is a place to sit, sit; if there is a restroom, go.

The single life is not one I willingly chose for myself.

The idea of stardom was difficult to grasp. It was like being schizophrenic; there was her, the woman on television, and the real me.

Some news managers have been slow to grasp that good television news is always substance over form.

The latest wrinkle is on wrinkles. There is a widespread belief that women can't grow old in television news.

Newscasters cannot call attention to themselves by being too attractive or too unattractive.

The bad news is that 50 people died in a hotel fire; the good news is that we got exclusive footage.

One reason I left local news was that I was tired of the constant musical chairs among news directors.

Women may not have it easy, but we are given a fairer chance to reach for the top.

When for so long you can't get a job for reasons that seem specious, you you finally do have it, you are constantly afraid of losing it.

I hadn't realized until I covered the police beat just how seedy crime is.

In the beginning, my mother humored me when I told her I wanted to be a reporter.

Men still control the news, both on and off camera.

My goal was to be a network correspondent by the time I was 30.

The minute viewers callin or write about your looks, they were not listening to what you were saying.

Many senators have developed a canny sense of what will play best for the audience.

I very much wanted to be accepted by my peers, to be considered a serious journalist.

Television is intensely personal.

Being a novelty had its advantages.