Tom Brokaw Quotes & Sayings

I had gone to all the big stories of the '80s, which was one of the most fertile times in American journalism, around the world and here as well. — Tom Brokaw

In our family, where we began with no money, we like to say that we have discovered that God invented money so those who have it can help others. — Tom Brokaw

The favourite bumper sticker in Washington D.C. right now is one that says 'First Iraq, then France' — Tom Brokaw

I've been lucky from my earliest memory on. I happened to be born to the right parents, and the lives we led - working class, migratory - suited my personality. I had an adventurous mindset, and we lived on an Army base, then in South Dakota - it was a dynamic environment. — Tom Brokaw

I guess the issue that I have with all the news organizations that have a political MO, if you will, attached to them is that they sometimes jump to conclusions about what this will mean. Get ahead of themselves. — Tom Brokaw

The Fall of the House of Zeus is a riveting American saga of ambition, cunning, greed, corruption, high life and low life in the land of Faulkner and Grisham. These are good ol' boys gone bad with flair, private jets, and lots of cash to carry. Curtis Wilkie, a child of the South and a reporter's reporter, is the perfect match for this wild ride. — Tom Brokaw

What I think is highly inappropriate is what's going on across the Internet, a kind of political jihad against Dan Rather and CBS News that's quite outrageous. — Tom Brokaw

Peter, of the three of us, was our prince. He seemed so timeless. He had such elan and style. — Tom Brokaw

Bias, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder. Facts are your firewall against bias. — Tom Brokaw

Life is filled with seasons and this is a different season. — Tom Brokaw

I was a young man working in Omaha, Nebraska, in the mid-1960s when I received a call, and I was summoned to Atlanta to work at WSB. It was, for me, the beginning of a real education about the South. — Tom Brokaw

There has never been a military operation remotely approaching the scale and the complexity of D-Day. It involved 176,000 troops, more than 12,000 airplanes, almost 10,000 ships, boats, landing craft, frigates, sloops, and other special combat vessels
all involved in a surprise attack on the heavily fortified north coast of France, to secure a beachhead in the heart of enemy-held territory so that the march to Germany and victory could begin. It was daring, risky, confusing, bloody, and ultimately glorious [p.25] — Tom Brokaw

Judy Miller is the most innocent person in this case. I really thought that was outrageous that she was jailed and we needed as journalists to draw a line in the sand in a strong but thoughtful way. — Tom Brokaw

It's not the questions that get us in trouble - it's the answers ... — Tom Brokaw

People do not like to have their favorite myths of idols challenged and as a rule I think that the public does not like bad news. — Tom Brokaw

Denial is a strong if imperfect defense. — Tom Brokaw

What was that World War I saying, "Trust the Lord and pass the ammo"? For me, trust the doctors and the Lord and pass the Velcade, Revlimid, dexamethasone. — Tom Brokaw

You are educated. Your certification is in your degree. You may think of it as the ticket to the good life. Let me ask you to think of an alternative. Think of it as your ticket to change the world. — Tom Brokaw

When you walk into a doctor's office, you've got to have the same attitude you would about anything else. You've got to ask tough questions, and you've got to not be afraid to challenge their credentials. — Tom Brokaw

I hope the World War II generation doesn't lose that quality that made them so appealing: their modesty, and the way they are always looking forward and seldom back. — Tom Brokaw

Speaking generally, people who are drawn to journalism are interested in what happens from the ground up less than they are from the top down. — Tom Brokaw

Forty years after the greatest scandal of the American presidency, Elizabeth Drew's account in Washington Journal remains fresh and riveting, instructive and evocative. Her afterword on Nixon's post-Watergate life is equally compelling. — Tom Brokaw

I wanted to see what was going on in the world. I sometimes think I overwished. — Tom Brokaw

I've lost seven friends to smoking-related lung cancer. Each death was a long, agonizing experience. — Tom Brokaw

Cancer has given me a dose of humility. I'm much more empathetic. It's a club I would rather not have joined, but it is a club. — Tom Brokaw

It will do us little good to wire the world if we short circut our souls. There is no delete button for racism, poverty, or sectarian violence. No key stroke can ever clean the air, save a river, preserve a forest. This transformational new technology must be an extension of our hearts as well as of our mind. — Tom Brokaw

Our obligation at the network is where do we fit into that and how can we best capitalize on that to make sure that our piece of that remains important to those young people. — Tom Brokaw

Bob Hope was an entertainment colossus, shrewd and influential well beyond show business. Richard Zoglin's biography captures it all
the public and private Hope. — Tom Brokaw

The disquieting news of Danny Villanueva's death brought back memories of our time together at KNBC in the early 1970s. — Tom Brokaw

What I did was experiment with a little marijuana like a lot of other people and walked away ... — Tom Brokaw

I would say that we have not completely cracked the code of the '60s. We are still finding our way through that time. — Tom Brokaw

The Warmth of Other Suns is a sweeping and yet deeply personal tale of America's hidden 20th century history - the long and difficult trek of Southern blacks to the northern and western cities. This is an epic for all Americans who want to understand the making of our modern nation. — Tom Brokaw

These are the dilemmas for cancer patients. Who and what to believe? A particular treatment is not foolproof, or as many medical experts remind us, is not math, with a fixed and certain outcome. — Tom Brokaw

Oklahoma residents are known for not backing down from a fight in the political arena, on the gridiron, NBA courts or rodeo arenas, but in their reaction to the bombing, they knew intuitively they would not find restoration in rage. — Tom Brokaw

forty years earlier. Quite — Tom Brokaw

In one way or another, President Obama's critics will dog him all the way to Oslo for the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, and even his admirers will continue to have doubts about his accomplishments if not his promise. — Tom Brokaw

A big part of making your own luck is just charging out of the gate every morning. — Tom Brokaw

My mother and father, with my newborn brother and me in the backseat of the 1938 Ford sedan that would be our family car for the next decade, moved to that hastily constructed Army ammunition depot called Igloo, on the alkaline and sagebrush landscape of far southwestern South Dakota. I was three years old. — Tom Brokaw

It was the beginning of his personal crusade to make life easier for the more than forty million disabled Americans. By 1990 he had moved Congress to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act, a sweeping piece of legislation that mandated changes in public buildings, accommodations, and transportation to make it easier for the disabled to function in American society. For Dole, it was his greatest legislative victory. Yet it was also a classic example of the two sides of Bob Dole. Although he was a champion of this federal directive that imposed on states and businesses rigid requirements that were costly and, in some cases, little used, he was also known for advocating a reduced role for the federal government. On — Tom Brokaw

Our friend, Timothy J. Russert, was a man who awoke every morning as if he had just won the lottery the day before. He was determined to take full advantage of his good fortune that he couldn't quite believe and share it with everyone around him. — Tom Brokaw

It doesn't do any good to wire the world if we short circuit the soul. — Tom Brokaw

You are not expected to know, but you are expected to wish to know. — Tom Brokaw

Gerald Ford brought to the political arena no demons, no hidden agenda, no hit list or acts of vengeance. He knew who he was, and he didn't require consultants or gurus to change him. — Tom Brokaw

Originally, the main purpose of the convention was to determine who the party would have as the presidential nominee and the vice-presidential nominee. — Tom Brokaw

My hope is that we would begin to have a dialogue in this country about the importance of civility. We can have strong differences, but it does seem to me that most of the country believes it's gone to critical mass in what I would call the professional class across the political spectrum - left and right. — Tom Brokaw

Votes are something that you earn. — Tom Brokaw

Everywhere I go - from Main Street to Wall Street - people ask, 'What's happened to our political system? Why can't Washington folks work together?' — Tom Brokaw

1920 was an auspicious year for a young person to enter the world as an American citizen. — Tom Brokaw

We live in a world where terror has become a too familiar part of our vocabulary. The terror of 9/11, in which al-Qaeda's attacks on America launched the nation into three wars - against Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Islamic State. — Tom Brokaw

I played high school basketball at six feet, then I went to 5-11 in my 50's, and then, bang, I went down to 5-9. — Tom Brokaw

After 50 years of smoking unfiltered cigarettes, my father died, too young, of a massive heart attack. He was 69. It's almost certain that all those years of nicotine inhalation were a major contributor to his clogged arteries. — Tom Brokaw

It's all storytelling, you know. That's what journalism is all about. — Tom Brokaw

There on the beaches of Normandy I began to reflect on the wonders of these ordinary people whose lives were laced with the markings of greatness. — Tom Brokaw

Our daughters were coming of age during a rising consciousness about gender equality. Throughout their school years - from kindergarten through graduate school, 1972 to 1992 - women were starting to take their places in areas traditionally reserved mostly for men. — Tom Brokaw

There are more facts and more truths told in the first eight minutes of The Daily Show than most political news conferences in Washington. — Tom Brokaw

I had this unusual mix of curiosity, the ability to write in ways people understood, and when I appeared, viewers seemed to trust me to get them through some cataclysmic changes. — Tom Brokaw

My own strong feeling was that the gay liberation movement really got national attraction in the truest sense of the word later in the '70s, in the '80s, and especially in the '90s. — Tom Brokaw

Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to run for vice president, died from multiple myeloma. Frank Reynolds, the ABC anchorman, who I had talked to toward the end of his life, not knowing what he had, died from it. Later I found out that Frank McGee, who was the Today Show host, died from it. — Tom Brokaw

Washington tends to be full of too many traps. I think reporters there do a lot of attending news briefings and news conferences expecting to get the real news out of those relatively sterile environments. But you've got to deal with the obscure people as well as the names. — Tom Brokaw

When I read 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' I was so struck by the universality of small towns. — Tom Brokaw

What I think is that Fox has done a very smart job of carving out their place. — Tom Brokaw

In 1989, a lone and still-anonymous Chinese student stood unarmed in front of a Chinese tank and gave the world an enduring image of the determination of China's young to change their nation. He didn't text message the tank or share a video on YouTube. — Tom Brokaw

When the war ended, more than twelve million men and women put their uniforms aside and returned to civilian life. They went back to work at their old jobs or started small businesses; they became big-city cops and firemen; they finished their degrees or enrolled in college for the first time; they became schoolteachers, — Tom Brokaw

In Los Angeles, I had the good fortune of anchoring the news right before Johnny Carson came on, so to see him, the Hollywood stars watched me first. — Tom Brokaw

Saving Italy is an astonishing account of a little known American effort to save Italy's vast store of priceless monuments and art during World War II. While American warriors were fighting the length of the country, other Americans were courageously working alongside to preserve the irreplaceable best of Italy's culture. Read it and be proud of those who were on their own front lines of a cruel war. — Tom Brokaw

I believe you make your own luck. My motto is 'It's always a mistake not to go.' — Tom Brokaw

I had good care going. I had Meredith and the family. And I didn't want to become the object of some kind of pity, most of all. I didn't want to show up on the Internet, 'Tom Brokaw has cancer.' — Tom Brokaw

The WWII generation shares so many common values: duty, honor, country, personal responsibility and the marriage vow For better or for worse
it was the last generation in which, broadly speaking, marriage was a commitment and divorce was not an option — Tom Brokaw

I was unknown because I came to Washington from the West. I started covering Watergate. Immodestly, I'd say I did it pretty well, in part because it was hard to go wrong. — Tom Brokaw

It is not enough to wire the world if you short-circuit the soul. Technology without heart is not enough. — Tom Brokaw

I'm in remission. I need to get my physical conditioning to a higher level. I was always very fit. I need to get back to where I am very confident in my ability to bike a long way. — Tom Brokaw

I'm the father of three daughters, and they're all highly trained professionals. Two of them are mothers, and the other one wants to be at some point. — Tom Brokaw

People are beginning to doubt the moral certitude of people on the right, especially the far right. — Tom Brokaw

The response to 'The Greatest Generation' and the books that followed has been one of the most satisfying experiences of my life. — Tom Brokaw

One of the things that we don't want to do is to destroy the infrastructure of Iraq, because in a few days we're going to own that country. — Tom Brokaw

Barack Obama's name will be the one on the peace prize, but his speech and his manner could become a gift for generations to come. — Tom Brokaw

We lost our way and allowed greed and excess to become the twin pillars of too much of the financial culture. We became a society utterly absorbed in consumption and dismissive of moderation. — Tom Brokaw

It is, I believe, the greatest generation any society has ever produced. — Tom Brokaw

In retrospect, the political and cultural climate in the early '60s seems both a time of innocence and also like a sultry, still summer day in the Midwest: an unsettling calm before a ferocious storm over Vietnam, which was not yet an American war. — Tom Brokaw

Is that cancer curable or just treatable. — Tom Brokaw

A common lament of the World War II generation is the absence today of personal responsibility — Tom Brokaw

No text message will ever replace the first kiss. — Tom Brokaw

The most memorable interviews for me are folks whose names I don't know: young civil rights leaders in the South, showing great courage as they walked into a town in the dark of night. A doctor working for 'Doctors Without Borders' in Somalia, operating by kerosene light in a tent. Those are the kinds of people that linger in your memory. — Tom Brokaw

I had fractures in my spine that had to be repaired that came as a big surprise; nobody warned me that I might get some really severe, threatening fractures. It was painful, and I lost two inches of height, bang! — Tom Brokaw

Ratings to me are a little like the Chinese Government. I don't fully understand what makes a rating go. I don't know what makes the American television audience respond to one person and not t another. There very seldom are great differences between many television personalities. — Tom Brokaw

My family is not only attractive - I can say that because I'm paterfamilias - but they're really smart, and they're very, very compassionate. — Tom Brokaw

The D-Day fortieth-anniversary project awakened my earliest memories. Between the ages of three and five I lived on an Army base in western South Dakota and spent a good deal of my time outdoors in a tiny helmet, shooting stick guns at imaginary German and Japanese soldiers. My father, Red Brokaw, then in his early thirties, was an all-purpose Mr. Fix-It and operator of snow-plows and — Tom Brokaw

I've seen a lot of seasons, change in my time. It's been a very lucky life. — Tom Brokaw

I've interviewed presidents and royalty, rock stars and movie stars, famous generals and captains of industry; I've had front row seats at Super Bowls, World Series, and Olympic Games; my books have been on best-seller lists, and my marriage is a long-running success. — Tom Brokaw

The meaningful role of the father of the bride was played out long before the church music began. It stretched across those years of infancy and puberty, adolescence and young adulthood. That's when she needs you at her side. — Tom Brokaw

Your grandparents came of age in the Great Depression, when everyday life was about deprivation and sacrifice, when the economic conditions of the time were so grave and so unrelenting it would have been easy enough for the American dream to fade away. — Tom Brokaw

The greatest generation was formed first by the Great Depression. They shared everything - meals, jobs, clothing. — Tom Brokaw

Established a thriving medical practice and was a fixture at our high school sports games. He never spoke to any of us of the horrors he had seen. When one of his sons wore as a casual jacket one of Doc Auld's Army coats with the major's insignia still attached, I remember thinking, — Tom Brokaw

As young parents of three girls, living in California during the late Sixties and early Seventies, Meredith and I couldn't help but be aware of the rising level of dialogue, debate, commentary, and proclamations about the place of women in society and about how to raise females in light of this raised consciousness. — Tom Brokaw

Despair hovered over the land like a plague. They had watched their parents lose their businesses, their farms, their jobs, their hopes. They had learned to accept a future that played out one day — Tom Brokaw

Because I lived in construction towns, we had a lot of workers who came from the South. They were all white, and, sorry to say, a number of them were pretty redneck. — Tom Brokaw

Here is a secret that no one has told you: Real life is junior high. — Tom Brokaw

When you run in places you visit, you encounter things you'd never see otherwise. — Tom Brokaw

I had always been interested in race and racial justice, but mostly it was with my nose pressed up against the glass, looking at the South from a long way away. — Tom Brokaw

I think obviously we need to work harder at extending the women's movement. How do women who have prepared for careers and have a child get back to the workplace and still fulfill maternal roles? — Tom Brokaw