Quotes by David Halberstam

“Fear was the terrible secret of the battlefiled and could afflict the brave as well as the timid. Worse it was contagious, and could destroy a unit before a battle even began. Because of that, comm...”

“[On writing:] "There's a great quote by Julius Irving that went, 'Being a professional is doing the things you love to do, on the days you don't feel like doing them.'", March 25, 2007.)”

“Why did McNamara have such good figures? Why did McNamara have such good staff work and Ball such poor staff work? The next day Ball would angrily dispatch his staff to come up with the figures, to...”

“There was, I found, always more to learn.”

“Officers came and went and were never a part of daily life.”

“The men were always wary of an officer who took form more seriously than function.”

“It was the kind of country that made you feel better about yourself.”

“Being well known for being well-known did not necessarily imply intelligence.”

“Bobby Kennedy said that when he had been a boy there were three major influences on children the home, the church, and the school and now there was a fourth television.”

“Newspapers might have as much to do in shaping the course of public events as politicians,”

“If the norm of the society is corrupted, then objective journalism is corrupted too, for it must not challenge the norm. It must accept the norm.”

“Education was central to reporting.”

“Until he (Time's founder Henry Luce) arrived, news was crime and politics.”

“Because history became his (Keenan's) genuine passion, he tended to see the world in terms of deep historical forces that, in his mind, formed a nation's character in ways almost beyond the conscio...”

“When he studied, it was not so much for a promotion as to EXCEL at his job.”

“He saw the pleasure you took from your job every day of his life, and THAT was what he wanted.”

“All professions have some element of theater to them.”

“Hughes might discuss Calvinism ably, but he did not live it, he wasby Time corporate standardsjust a little lazy.”

“The truth posed a great dilemma for a man who always had to be right, and yet, for all his grandeur, was often wrong.”

“he was so obsessed by the action in front of him that he had no awareness of the growing reaction to his performance.”