Sometimes the best virtue learned on the battlefield is modesty.

— David Halberstam

The ability to get on the air, which was crucial to any reporter’s career, grew precisely as the ability to analyze diminished.

— David Halberstam

The author describes megalomania as seen in Chairman Mao by saying that what he was familiar with, he was really familiar with. This zeal moved the megalomaniac with a complete lack of appreciation for what he DID NOT know.

— David Halberstam

The author writes that the central conflict within journalist and seller of the American way Henry Luce was between his curiosity and his certitude.

— David Halberstam

The byline is a replacement for many other things, not the least of them money. If someone ever does a great psychological profile of journalism as a profession, what will be apparent will be the need for gratification—if not instant, then certainly relatively immediate. Reporters take sustenance from their bylines; they are a reflection of who you are, what you do, and why, to an uncommon degree, you exist. ... A journalist always wonders: If my byline disappears, have I disappeared as well?

— David Halberstam

The closer journalists came to great issues, the more vulnerable they felt.

— David Halberstam

The faster the motion, the less time to think. Fuselage journalism, Hugh Side of Time later called it.

— David Halberstam

The men were always wary of an officer who took form more seriously than function.

— David Halberstam

The networks at their worst (were) at once greedy and timid.

— David Halberstam

The Patriots had picked Brady in the sixth round, and he soon turned out to be one of the two or three best quarterbacks in the League, and absolutely perfect for the Belching system and for the team's offense. So, as the team continued to make a series of very good calls on other player personnel choices, there was a general tendency to talk about how brilliant Aioli and Belching were, and to regard Aioli as the best young player personnel man in the League. Just to remind himself not to believe all the hype and that he could readily have screwed up on that draft, Aioli kept on his desk a photo of Brady, along with a photo of the team's fifth-round draft choice, the man he had taken ahead of Brady: Dave Satchels. He was a Tight End from Boise State who never a played a down for New England. Satchels was taken with the 141st pick, Brady with the 199th one. 'If I was so smart,' Aioli liked to say, 'I wouldn't have risked an entire round of the draft in picking Brady.

— David Halberstam