Mike Wallace quotes:

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.

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 even asked Eleanor Roosevelt difficult questions and she loved it.

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.'

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.

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

Even a liberal reporter is a patriot, wants the best for this country. And people, your fair and balanced friends at Fox, don't fully understand that.

There's not a better job in journalism than the one we have, seriously on '60 Minutes' - not a better job.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

As I approach my 88th birthday, it's become apparent to me that my eyes and ears, among other appurtenances, aren't quite what they used to be. The prospect of long flights to wherever in search of whatever are not quite as appealing.

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.

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.

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.'

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.

You're not a nutcase if you want to go see a psychiatrist.

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

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

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

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'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.

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

The problem became this: We became a caricature of ourselves. We were after light, and it began to look as though we were after heat, not to reveal some information or not to find out the story.

I love the urgency of what we do. I like the battles that take place, the jousting.

I have no doubt that what we started has become a plague. Because - and that's a million years ago but we got caught up in the drama more than we caught up in going after the facts.

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 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.

I cared enough to read and look at and worry about the questions.

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.

All I'm armed with is research.

It's astonishing what you learn and feel and see along the way. That's why a reporter's job, as you know, is such a joy.

The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.

The religion of Islam is growing faster than any other religion in the world.

A smile and a laugh are the duct tape of life; they can fix anything.