Christiane Amanpour Quotes

There are some situations one simply cannot be neutral about, because when you are neutral you are an accomplice. Objectivity doesn't mean treating all sides equally. It means giving each side a hearing.

And I believe that good journalism, good television, can make our world a better place.

I leave CNN with the utmost respect, love and admiration for the company and everyone who works here. This has been my family and shared endeavor for the past 27 years, and I am forever grateful and proud of all that we have accomplished.

We were thrilled and we were privileged to be part of a revolution, because make no mistake about it, Ted Turner changed the world with CNN.

For instance, why are we terrorizing this country, leading with murder and mayhem, when crime is actually on the decline, as somebody, as somebody mentioned?

But 17 years ago, I arrived at CNN with a suitcase, with my bicycle, and with about 100 dollars.

I strongly believe that journalism is one of the most noble professions, because without an informed world, and without an informed society, we are weak, we are weak.

Perhaps the most important thing I could say is to never be thrown by failure and mistakes. Each and everything that happens, even if it was not what you hoped would happen, is a valuable, life-learning tool. And you will only achieve success if you know how to learn from your failures and mistakes. It’s vital.

Because if we the storytellers don't do this, then the bad people will win.

I have made my living bearing witness to some of the most horrific events of the end of our century, at the end of the 20th century.

In Bosnia, little children shot in the head by a guy who thinks it's okay to aim his gun at a child.

Objectivity means trying to give all sides a hearing. It does not, in my view, mean treating all sides as equal.

My view is that when lies become mixed up with the truth, it's a very dangerous world.

In emerging democracies like Russia, in authoritarian states like Iran or even Yugoslavia, journalists play a vital role in civil society. In fact, they form the very basis of those new democracies and civil societies.

Some people accused me of being pro-Muslim in Bosnia, but I realised that our job is to give all sides an equal hearing, but in cases of genocide you can't just be neutral. You can't just say, 'Well, this little boy was shot in the head and killed in besieged Sarajevo and that guy over there did it, but maybe he was upset because he had an argument with his wife.' No, there is no equality there, and we had to tell the truth.

They take journalism really seriously because they know the force that it is and can be.

I was really just the tea boy to begin with, or the equivalent thereof, but I quickly announced, innocently but very ambitiously, that I wanted to be, I was going to be, a foreign correspondent.

And one thing that I always believed and that I knew for certain was that I could never have sustained a personal relationship while I worked this hard, or while I was that driven this intensely by the story.

I believe America will always win the war. It's a superpower that no one can challenge. The real challenge is for the United States to win the peace.

We in the press, by our power, can actually undermine leadership.

And then theres always the crying and the weeping that we hear-children, women, even men. And these images and these sounds are always with me.

What we do and say and show really matters.

What Americans don't care much about is the piffle we put on TV these days, what they don't care about is boring, irrelevant, badly told stories, and what they really hate is the presumption that they're too stupid to know the difference.

U.S. soldiers, with whom I now have more than a passing acquaintance, joke that they track my movements in order to know where they will be deployed next.

I do believe that is a template that I stick very strongly to to tell the truth in an increasing swelter of lies and misinformation and disinformation.

If you have a child, I said, you have a responsibility at least to stay alive.

In Iran the whole reform and democracy movement has been based on the emerging free press.

I have spent the past ten years in just about every war zone there was.

I'm thrilled to be joining the incredible team at ABC News. Being asked to anchor 'This Week' and the superb tradition started by David Brinkley, is a tremendous and rare honor, and I look forward to discussing the great domestic and international issues of the day.

If we have no respect for our viewers, then how can we have any respect for ourselves and what we do?

Objectivity doesn't mean treating all sides equally. It means giving each side a hearing.

Here in the United States, our profession is much maligned, people simply don't trust or like journalists anymore and that's sad.

And I really believe good journalism is good business.

We turn now over the debate of the proposed Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero....The controversy has raised profound questions about religious tolerance and prejudice in the United States.

Mostly, as I said, a desire to do a bit of good, and the quaint notion that this is what we signed up for, this is the business that we have chosen.

I have always thought it morally unacceptable to kill stories, not to run stories, that people have risked their lives to get.

But to be self-obsessed is simply not o.k. for the most important country in the world, the United States, which affects every other country in the world.

Because I am foreign I was assigned to the foreign desk. I kid you not, its true.

Im not an American but I have always had the outsiders respect for the American people and the American way.

Our industry has invested so much money in technology that perhaps it's time to invest in talent, in people.

Indeed in the full flush of journalistic passion and conviction I once told an interviewer that of course I would never get married. And I most definitely would never have children.

People are interested if you tell stories well and relevantly.