Morley Safer Quotes & Sayings

Pilgrims who are looking for a cure are soon looking for a curio. — Morley Safer

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

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. — Morley Safer

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

I believe in playing petanque with a certain kind of panache - even if you're winning, you take a risk. — Morley Safer

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

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. — Morley Safer

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. — Morley Safer

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

Parents like the idea of kids, they just don't like their kids. — Morley Safer

Killing is the payoff of war. — Morley Safer

I am not in this business as a calling. I don't do what I do to right any wrongs. — Morley Safer

I did three tours in Vietnam. I guess a total of about almost two years. — Morley Safer

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. — Morley Safer

Clinton's pardoning of Marc Rich was off-the-wall. — Morley Safer

Some people, you have to grit your teeth in order to stay in the same room as them, but you get on and ask the questions you assume most of the people watching want to ask. — Morley Safer

The Republicans learned well from Bill Clinton. — Morley Safer

No great pastry chef has sweet teeth. — Morley Safer

In his lifetime the great French impressionist painter Corot painted 2000 canvases. Of that number, 3000 are in the United States. — Morley Safer

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. — Morley Safer

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

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

Kids' views are often just as valid as the teachers'. The best teachers are the ones that know that. — Morley Safer

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. — Morley Safer

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

The workplace has become a psychological battlefield and the millennials have the upper hand, because they are tech savvy, with every gadget imaginable almost becoming an extension of their bodies. They multitask, talk, walk, listen and type, and text. And their priorities are simple: they come first. — Morley Safer

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

We don't want anything from the government but that furtive little fellow called the truth - which, by the way, they'll never give you - which you have to go out and find by talking to people. — Morley Safer

BBC Radio is not so much an art or industry as it is a way of life ... a mirror that reflects ... the eccentricities, the looniness that make Britons slightly different from other humans. — Morley Safer

Arrogance and snobbism live in adjoining rooms and use a common currency. — Morley Safer

I don't see myself as a Luddite. — Morley Safer

I really don't like being on television. It makes me uneasy. It is not natural to be talking to a piece of machinery. But the money is very good. — Morley Safer

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. — Morley Safer

[The] BBC was known as Auntie suggesting someone prudish and Victorian and that she still is on some days. On others she's a champagne-soaked floozie, her skirts in disarray, her mind in the gutter, and the mixture can be quite wonderful. — Morley Safer

The BBC is a perfect example of uncontrolled growth, [occupying] old churches and manor houses, the old Langham Hotel where Sherlock Holmes once met Moriarty and where this correspondent once shared an office with an 8-foot bathtub. — Morley Safer

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. — Morley Safer

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. — Morley Safer

I really don't care what movie stars have to say about life. — Morley Safer

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

When I grow up, I want to have an exhibit called 'American Motel.' — Morley Safer

BBC Radio is a never-never land of broadcasting, a safe haven from commercial considerations, a honey pot for every scholar and every hare-brained nut to stick a finger into. — Morley Safer

For the most part, I think American armies are awfully good in the business of protecting civilians, of not going over the line. — Morley Safer

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. — Morley Safer

The helicopter is a fine way to travel, but it induces a view of the world that only God and CEOs share on a regular basis. — Morley Safer

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

I would trust citizen journalism as much as I would trust citizen surgery. — Morley Safer

This [the movie Babe] is the way Americans want to think of pigs. Real-life 'Babes' see no sun in their limited lives, with no hay to lie on, no mud to roll in. The sows live in tiny cages, so narrow they can't even turn around. They live over metal grates, and their waste is pushed through slats beneath them and flushed into huge pits. — Morley Safer

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. — Morley Safer

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. — Morley Safer