Morley Safer Quotes

After more than 50 years of broadcasting on ‘CBS News’ and ’60 Minutes,’ I have decided to retire. It’s been a wonderful run, but the time has come to say goodbye to all of my friends at CBS and the dozens of people who kept me on the air.

No great pastry chef has sweet teeth.

So much crap passes as information that not only does the audience sometimes miss the distinction between news and crap, the editors sometimes miss the distinction.

In many ways when Jerry Ford pardoned Nixon, in a certain way, he did speak for the country.

McNamara’s plea was that he had no idea that Vietnam had a history of longing for self-determination, a history of resisting foreign invasion.

I would trust citizen journalism as much as I would trust citizen surgery.

If you want to look at a cheap shot, look at Mr. Koons’s or Mr. Gober’s art. By no definition is it art.

What has reality shows got to do with reality? It is beyond unreality; there is nothing real about it.

I am not in this business as a calling. I don’t do what I do to right any wrongs.

I have no desire to put my feet up. Why would I?

I don’t see myself as a Luddite.

You can be a great president and be ridden with flaws. Of course we know that.

The Republicans learned well from Bill Clinton.

Reality TV is sleazy, it is manipulative. It is as momentary as anything in popular culture.

I believe in playing petanque with a certain kind of panache – even if you’re winning, you take a risk.

Clinton’s pardoning of Marc Rich was off-the-wall.

I really feel stateless, which is not bad, because I always felt a man without a country was not encumbered by narrow loyalties.

The Bush Cabinet is quite interesting, there are no flashy people in there. No stars. They all seem quite focused and serious and knowledgeable about the areas to which they have been appointed.

A lot of sponsors over the years have left us. They’ve all come back. But they chose to leave us for a while because of stories we have done about them or their products or their friend’s products or whatever.

When I did that interview with Hepburn, the only ground rule was, you did not discuss Spencer Tracy. Spencer Tracy’s widow is still alive, and she respected that.

Whenever it’s suggested that our sponsors have some kind of influence or control of what we cover in some kind of censorship through financial pressure, it’s rubbish. That’s never happened.

It is always disarming to treat with the enemy, so to speak.

You can never have enough garlic. With enough garlic, you can eat The New York Times.

Don may yawn at the idea, which he often does, but the great thing about Don, he has confidence in me and Mike and Ed and Leslie and Steve, that we’re not going go out and do stories that will put people to sleep.

Who knows who will be on board? A couple of spies, for sure. At least one grand duke; a few beautiful woman, no doubt very rich and very troubled. Anything can happen and usually does on the Orient Express.

What does it say about us that people who are considered defective are instinctively caring and compassionate?

We are on Sunday night because that is where they put us 30-odd years ago. I think we became a habit.

I think it has sullied his presidency. As brilliant a politician as Bill Clinton is, as magnetic a personality as he can be, there is one little screw loose somewhere.

After four or five different wars, I grew weary of that work, partly because in an open war, open to coverage, as Vietnam was, it’s not that difficult, really.

I really don’t care what movie stars have to say about life.