Gwen Ifill Quotes & Sayings

Journalists are accused of being lapdogs when they don't ask the hard questions, but then accused of being rude when they do. Good thing we have tough hides. — Gwen Ifill

Can't disagree with the need for a grasp of history. — Gwen Ifill

If you take the same child and put them in two different places, it will dramatically shape the way in which their economic outcomes are realized later in life. — Gwen Ifill

There's five factors or characteristics of places where kids from poor backgrounds don't do very well. And those are places that have more economic and racial segregation, places with more income inequality. — Gwen Ifill

Aspiring black leaders are often asked to transcend race, even though no one ever asked, say, Hillary Clinton to transcend gender. This is a precarious race straddle that most members of the breakthrough generation seem to reject. Even the most well meaning white Obama supporters seem to take deep satisfaction in this idea. Obama, they insisted, could be raceless, a reasurringly optimistic view of America's deepest burden that ignores countless peices of evidence to the contrary. — Gwen Ifill

A lot of Democrats are not that upset with Howard Dean. Howard Dean gets out here and he says these inflammatory things, and he doesn't apologize. He doesn't back down a little bit. — Gwen Ifill

In the media universe we're in, where there are people screaming on one end, there is no problem at all with having a little bit of extra politeness. — Gwen Ifill

Whatever their motivations, lawmakers on both side of the aisle have certainly discovered that immigration is one of those issues that resonate strongly with the public. — Gwen Ifill

It's not surprising that you wouldn't see that side of me on television, but in real life I find the world to be quite a funny place. — Gwen Ifill

On immigration, there are a lot of hurdles before anything arrives at the White House. — Gwen Ifill

When the President was asked about global warming at a public appearance yesterday, he responded by talking about America's addiction to oil. You make the connection. — Gwen Ifill

I'm not quite certain how you can force a candidate to stick by the rules. — Gwen Ifill

I actually think agendas are more often found in State of the Union speeches than in inaugural speeches. — Gwen Ifill

All of our panelists are deeply engaged in the topics at hand, so that leaves me free to convene a little dinner party, sans alcohol, and invite the rest of America to listen in. — Gwen Ifill

When you are interviewing someone, you have a chance to follow up, to press, to dig in. In a debate there's 30 seconds for the other guy, too. And the goal is to get them to engage with each other, not to engage you necessarily. — Gwen Ifill

I see a pretty bright line between analysis and opinion. And so, to that end, my goal on Friday nights is to try to assemble the smartest reporters who are available to me that week who have been involved in covering the news. — Gwen Ifill

We needed someone to recognize the importance of check and balances, accountability, transparency. There was a real systemic problem at South Carolina State, a problem that has gone on for 25 or 30 years — Gwen Ifill

Because I would never work for a niche publication or a niche program on television and because I am a journalist and not an opinion person, my job is to try to see how many different points of view I can represent or how. It's not even a question of who you don't offend because you are always going to offend somebody. The question is how can you get people to listen to the information you have to present. — Gwen Ifill

I spent my career trying to speak to the broadest possible audience whether it's in print or whether it's in television. — Gwen Ifill

History shows that people often do cast their votes for amorphous reasons-the most powerful among them being the need for change. Just ask Bill Clinton. — Gwen Ifill

I'm a preacher's kid, and we were always told, Act right all the time, because someone's always watching. — Gwen Ifill

One of the things that Africa needs, everybody seems to agree, is some measure of debt relief. — Gwen Ifill

We will wait to see if it is a doozy before we decide how to cover it, and what it all means. — Gwen Ifill

One of the unwritten rules in a presidential news conference is that he'll answer questions. If he chooses not to, there's not much you can do about it other than make yourself look like an idiot screaming, which to me is counterproductive. — Gwen Ifill

If it were the Clinton people, they'd be sitting around figuring out how to pull themselves out. Instead the president is continuing to go around the country and peddling Social Security, which the needle is not moving on. — Gwen Ifill

I just think we as consumers of information media must be very clear what it is we are consuming. Whether we are choosing to get our information by listening to people fight about it. Or whether we're choosing to get it by listening to the facts or watching the facts as they're laid out and then reaching our own conclusions. It's very different ways of info gathering, but it's not all journalism. — Gwen Ifill

Poor children in Baltimore face even worse odds than low-income kids elsewhere, mostly because they remain in impoverished neighborhoods. — Gwen Ifill

This is what happens with a breakthrough. The first ones through the door often get bruised if not broken. Eventually, with a little political acumen and racial sensitivity and a lot of hard work, a smooth new place can emerge. — Gwen Ifill

There seems to be more abiding interest in unearthing old memos abroad than there is here. — Gwen Ifill

The common agenda both sides seem to share is: Whatever works. — Gwen Ifill

We used to say in the black community that if somebody else caught a cold, we caught pneumonia. — Gwen Ifill

Hope springs eternal, even in politics. — Gwen Ifill

No parent should be denied from their Scouting - their son's Scouting experience simply because those parents happen to be gay. — Gwen Ifill

Tony Blair - good thing there are not parliamentary elections in this country. — Gwen Ifill

I'm not really good at being predictive, so I guess I'm willing to be surprised. — Gwen Ifill

I'm not in love. I'm not out of love. I'm just trying to find some version of the truth. — Gwen Ifill

I think I'm careful. My goal is to try to stay away as much from opinion journalism as possible. — Gwen Ifill

Did I say that the President's entire job is image management? Of course not. — Gwen Ifill

Don't count out other amazing programming like Frontline. You will still find more hours of in-depth news programming, investigative journalism and analysis on PBS than on any other outlet. — Gwen Ifill

If you start to catalog Hillary Clinton's positions between now and 2008, we're going to have a lot of conversations because there are a lot of places for her to go. — Gwen Ifill

Mormon leaders said in a statement they will reexamine their ties to the Boy Scouts. "The church," they said, "has always welcomed all boys to its Scouting units regardless of sexual orientation. However, the admission of openly gay leaders is inconsistent with the doctrines of the church and what have traditionally been the values of the Boy Scouts of America." — Gwen Ifill

If you take the conflicts we are used to dealing with, race over the years in America, and you combine that with the desire or aspiration to political power or taking power from other people, which is what politics is all about, you end up with a lot more friction than you would normally see with just straight-ahead politics. — Gwen Ifill

The President has launched a very agressive campaign of self-defense, with the goal of getting Americans to buy into his vision of America on the world stage. — Gwen Ifill

Is it unreasonable to have proof of citizenship when entering another country? — Gwen Ifill

Folks who are getting their strokes in the South are not as unhappy with Howard Dean. You don't see anybody starting any movement to get him out of office. — Gwen Ifill

We're not paying attention to the fact that Hillary Clinton is running in 2006. Everyone is looking to her for the future. It's the same with anybody else who's positioning themselves. — Gwen Ifill

Our position has never been that people should be forced out of Scouting. We have always said that the values of Scouting are universal they should be welcome to everyone who is willing to live by the Scout oath and the Scout law. — Gwen Ifill

I find that those who voted for George W. Bush are less offended by his religious references, and those who voted for Bill Clinton did not seem offended at all when people prayed at his inauguration. — Gwen Ifill

People do still cheer for the President. And some of the military audiences are more likely to cheer than others. I have seen him speak lately in front of groups like Freedom House, where the applause was a long time coming. — Gwen Ifill

It's never too late to move to a good place to try to improve your child's outcomes in adulthood. — Gwen Ifill

Barack Obama didn't get elected president, would never have been elected president, had he decided to run as a black candidate. In order to reach the broadest number of people you have to speak to their interests as broadly as you can. — Gwen Ifill

Discrimination at any level sends a harmful message to youth, gay or straight alike, and that discrimination has no place in Scouting. — Gwen Ifill

Change comes from listening, learning, caring and conversation. — Gwen Ifill

It's rare for a first lady to be running for president. — Gwen Ifill

It's funny, everywhere I go some people ask me whether it's going to be a Latino breakthrough, some people ask me whether it's going to be a female breakthrough, and then I'm reminded that five years ago we didn't even know Barack Obama's name. — Gwen Ifill

It's been years, decades, since a president has lost a major trade initiative. That would be bad headlines. — Gwen Ifill

You would like me to say that the veil will be ripped from the voters' eyes sometime between now and November, thereby restoring the proper version of Democracy to the House and Senate. I won't say that, of course. The simple reason is, I don't know. — Gwen Ifill