Quote

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.

Sam Donaldson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Sam Donaldson
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: March 11
Journalist
El Paso
Texas
Things
Asks
President
Two
Remember
Cover
Find
Damage
Firsts
Questions
First
Second
Trying
Answers

More quotes by Sam Donaldson

Image
But in 1941, on December 8th, after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, my mother bought a radio and we listened to the war news. We'd not had a radio up to that time. I was born in 1934, so I was seven years of age.
Sam Donaldson
Image
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.
Sam Donaldson
Image
The questions don't do the damage. Only the answers do.
Sam Donaldson
Image
My mother did all she could to control me, but at age 14 she sent me to a military school.
Sam Donaldson
Image
Well, I was born in El Paso, Texas, it was in the nearest hospital to the family farm.
Sam Donaldson
Image
I didn't come east of the Mississippi for the first time in my life until I was 26 years of age, but I knew. I read magazines, I listened to radio, I watched television. I knew there was something out there, and I wanted a part of it.
Sam Donaldson
Image
In 27 years of reporting from Washington, I've never heard a President admit he made a mistake.
Sam Donaldson
Image
News conferences are the only chance the American public has to see Ronald Reagan use his mind.
Sam Donaldson
Image
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.
Sam Donaldson
Image
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.
Sam Donaldson
Image
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!
Sam Donaldson
Image
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.
Sam Donaldson
Image
I don't know many people, if any, who have had some straight line toward success. I mean, they start here, they work hard, they've got what it takes, and they just go straight to the top over some number of years. Most people get a little failure.
Sam Donaldson
Image
And from a military school which taught me that to fit into society, you can't just do anything you damn well please because it will suit you. And that it's much better to be with the winners than it is with the losers.
Sam Donaldson
Image
The President's very shrewd
Sam Donaldson
Image
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.
Sam Donaldson
Image
It wasn't until the late '70s that a lot of people knew me.
Sam Donaldson
Image
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.
Sam Donaldson
Image
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!
Sam Donaldson
Image
And on election night I'd go down to city hall in El Paso, Texas and cover the election. In those days, of course, we didn't have exit polls. You didn't know who had won the election until they actually counted the votes. I thought that was exciting too.
Sam Donaldson