"Quinn Martin sent over an 'Untouchables' script written by Ben Maddow ['The Noise of Death'] that was an absolutely brilliant script. I read it three times. Never went to sleep that night. I just read it, and read it again, and read it again. Called the next morning, and I said: 'I'm yours.'"
"It is not a journalist's job to change the world. A journalist's job is to see what's happening in the world and report that to others, who will then change it."
"If you're a good storyteller, if you can get what the director wants on film, and get the continuity and the story and the flow and the timing, then you've done a good job."
"When I came to Public Broadcasting, to National Educational Television in 1970, it was informed with the original mission of Public Broadcasting as a continuing course in adult education - offering the best of the performing arts. Offering the best of opera. Offering the best of journalism. Offering what the market would not provide. That's how I came to Public Broadcasting. That was the mind set, mentality, history, and as you might say, legislative history that I brought with me to this system. It was designed to tell stories that were worth telling, even if advertisers wouldn't pay for their telling, or despite the fact that advertisers wouldn't pay for their selling."