Bob Woodward

I don't think there will ever be a permanent truce, but I believe the media needs to be more careful and be willing to count to 10 before rushing on the air or into print.

There's hostility to lying, and there should be.

Newspapers that are truly independent, like The Washington Post, can still aggressively investigate anyone or anything with no holds barred.

The legislator learns that when you talk a lot, you get in trouble. You have to listen a lot to make deals.

The central dilemma in journalism is that you don't know what you don't know.

I'm not going to name some of my colleagues who are very well-known for their television presentation, but they wouldn't know new information or how to report a story if it came up and bit them.

Using these unnamed sources, if done properly, carefully and fairly, provides more accountability in government.

Watergate provides a model case study of the interaction and powers of each of the branches of government. It also is a morality play with a sad and dramatic ending.

I think that everyone is kind of confused about the information they get from the media and rightly so. I'm confused about the information I get from the media.

After Nixon resigned in 1974, he engaged in a very aggressive war with history, attempting to wipe out the Watergate stain and memory. Happily, history won, largely because of Nixon's tapes.

Watergate is an immensely complicated scandal with a cast of characters as varied as a Tolstoy novel.

I suspect there have been a number of conspiracies that never were described or leaked out. But I suspect none of the magnitude and sweep of Watergate.

It would seem that the Watergate story from beginning to end could be used as a primer on the American political system.

The source known as Deep Throat provided a kind of road map through the scandal. His one consistent message was that the Watergate burglary was just the tip of the iceberg.

Not a season passes without new disclosures showing Nixon's numerous attempts at criminal use of his presidential powers and in fact the scorn he held for the rule of law.

If information is true, if it can be verified, and if it's really important, the newspaper needs to be willing to take the risk associated with using unidentified sources.

I think people are smart enough to sort it out. They know when they're watching one of these food fight shows where journalists sit around and yell and scream at each other, versus serious issue reporting.

Way before Watergate, senior administration officials hid behind anonymity.

A reporter's ability to keep the bond of confidentiality often enables him to learn the hidden or secret aspects of government.

If you interviewed 1,000 politicians and asked about whether the media's "too soft" or "too hard," about 999 would say "too hard."

When you practice reporting for as long as I have, you keep yourself at a distance from True Believers. Either conservatives or liberals or Democrats or Republicans.