Quotes Library

March 28, 2025

A government is the only known vessel that leaks from the top.

James Reston (1909–1995), American journalist, The Portable Curmudgeon, Jon Winokur, ed. (New York: 1987), p.124

How frequently do you or would you leak? Drop a hint? Send something off in a brown paper envelope?

And good that governments do leak, else Reston (one of the most influential journalists of his day) would have had a lot fewer scoops to report.


More Quotes

May 10, 2025
I respect fidelity to colleagues even though they are fit for the hangman.
August 16, 2025
There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.
July 5, 2025
00:32
There is but one way for a newspaperman to look at a politician, and that is down.
Page 73 of 125