Sam Donaldson Quotes

The questions don't do the damage. Only the answers do.

I was a typical farm boy. I liked the farm. I enjoyed the things that you do on a farm, go down to the drainage ditch and fish, and look at the crawfish and pick a little cotton.

Call me a braggart, call me arrogant. People at ABC (and elsewhere) have called me worse. But when you need the job done on deadline, you'll call me.

I'd rather work with someone who's good at their job but doesn't like me, than someone who likes me but is a ninny.

As I went to college, I went into radio and television. Now I suppose most people think that's one step ahead of basket weaving as a major in college, but it was part of the journalism department.

I saw a large, red dried swath that I immediately identified clearly as blood. I covered the war in Vietnam. I saw a lot of it [blood] there.

And really, the basis, I think, of achieving some success in what I want to do today comes from my mother's push to get me to read and to make something of myself from the standpoint of an education.

Let's face it: Many on the political right believe this president ought not to be there - they oppose him not for his polices and political view but for who he is, an African American!

There was a little bit of ham in me. And there's a lot of people say there's a lot of ham in me.

It was kind of exciting being on the radio. Not everybody was on the radio.

So when I cover the president, I try to remember two things: First, if you don't ask, you don't find out; and second, the questions don't do the damage. Only the answers do.

Well, I was born in El Paso, Texas, it was in the nearest hospital to the family farm.

If you have a setback, and you're not doing well and then you overcome it somehow, it always sticks with you. You know it could happen again.

If you sent me to cover a pie-baking contest on Mother's Day, I'm going to ask dear old Mom why she used artificial sweetener or stole the apples!

But as a young kid, I never did, really have an ambition to be a farmer. I never thought, gee, I would like to farm, and I want to raise these crops. I didn't quite know what I wanted to do.

News conferences are the only chance the American public has to see Ronald Reagan use his mind.

My personal opinion is that guns kill people.

It wasn't until the late '70s that a lot of people knew me.

The President's very shrewd

The press . . . traditionally sides with authority and the establishment.

In 27 years of reporting from Washington, I've never heard a President admit he made a mistake.

My mother did all she could to control me, but at age 14 she sent me to a military school.