1.
All presidents rail against the press. It goes with the turf.
Helen Thomas
2.
I don't think a tough question is disrespectful.
Helen Thomas
3.
We don't go into journalism to be popular. It is our job to seek the truth and put constant pressure on our leaders until we get answers.
Helen Thomas
4.
People will never know how hard it is to get information, especially if it's locked up behind official doors where, if politicians had their way, they'd stamp 'top secret' on the color of the walls.
Helen Thomas
5.
We are the only institution in our society that can question a president on a regular basis and make him accountable. Otherwise, he could be king.
Helen Thomas
6.
This is the worst President ever. He [George W. Bush] is the worst President in all of American history.
Helen Thomas
7.
Everyone with a cell phone thinks they're a photographer. Everyone with a laptop thinks they're a journalist. But they have no training, and they have no idea of what we keep to in terms of standards, as in what's far out and what's reality. And they have no dedication to truth.
Helen Thomas
8.
You cannot have a democracy without an informed people.
Helen Thomas
9.
I'm not anti-Jewish; I'm anti-Zionist.
Helen Thomas
10.
I'm a liberal, I was born a liberal, I'll be one 'til I die, what else should a reporter be when you see so much and when we have such great privilege and access to the truth?
Helen Thomas
11.
Don't let the politicians chip away at the New Deal and the Great Society programs like Social Security and Medicare, that puts a floor beyond which the elderly, the sick, the powerless do not starve or lack for medicine or shelter.
Helen Thomas
12.
We are owned by propagandists against the Arabs. There's no question about that. Congress, the White House, and Hollywood, Wall Street, are owned by the Zionists. No question in my opinion. They put their money where their mouth is...We're being pushed into a wrong direction in every way.
Helen Thomas
13.
Congress, the White House and Hollywood, Wall Street are owned by the Zionists.
Helen Thomas
14.
I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon.
Helen Thomas
15.
Try to reject war and give peace a chance. Question the powers that be and find out why they make the dubious decisions they do that send young people to war.
Helen Thomas
16.
Every president thinks that all information that comes to the White House is their private preserve after they all promise an open administration on the campaign trail, but some are more secretive than others. Some want to lock down everything.
Helen Thomas
17.
I'm decrepit but I don't want to give up, and I love my work.
Helen Thomas
18.
I don't think there are any rude questions.
Helen Thomas
19.
I got into the Kennedy White House because at the time I was president of the Women's National Press Club, and they assigned me to cover the early days of the Kennedy campaign. Jackie especially. Everyone was interested in the family.
Helen Thomas
20.
I respect the office of the presidency, but I never worship at the shrines of our public servants...The Washington press corps has the privilege of asking the president of the United States what he is doing and why.
Helen Thomas
21.
We in the press have a special role since there is no other institution in our society that can hold the President accountable. I do believe that our democracy can endure and prevail only if the American people are informed.
Helen Thomas
22.
I'll tell you how I handle stress. I say-This too shall pass. You've got to try to stay cool and admit when you're wrong, and tell them when you're right.
Helen Thomas
23.
I hit the third rail. You cannot criticize Israel in this country and survive.
Helen Thomas
24.
Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly has been disturbed over what he sees as the erosion of presidential powers since the Watergate scandal and has urged Bush to take a stronger stand against what Cheney sees as congressional intrusions into the executive branch.
Helen Thomas
25.
There are better ways we can transform this virulent hatred - by living our ideals, the Peace Corps, exchange students, teachers, exporting our music, poetry, blue jeans.
Helen Thomas
26.
You didn't tell a lie, you just left a big hole in the truth.
Helen Thomas
27.
If we care about the children, the grandchildren, the future generations, we need to make sure that they do not become the cannon fodder of the future.
Helen Thomas
28.
In Plains, I saw Jimmy Carter as he really is - a nice, decent man... in terms of compassionate contribution to society, he certainly has proven to be our best past president.
Helen Thomas
29.
Everybody is in the pocket of the Israeli lobbies.
Helen Thomas
30.
You don't spread democracy through the barrel of a gun.
Helen Thomas
31.
I covered two presidents, LBJ and Nixon, who could no longer convince, persuade, or govern, once people had decided they had no credibility, but we seem to be more tolerant now of what I think we should not tolerate.
Helen Thomas
32.
Presidential power was overruled by the high bench in July 1974, when President Nixon was ordered to turn over some audio tapes of his White House conversations, including the 'smoking gun' tape of June 23, 1972, that revealing the Watergate cover up.
Helen Thomas
33.
I can remember the morning after President Nixon won re-election in 1972. His chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, called a Cabinet meeting and told the members: 'You are all a bunch of burned-out volcanoes;' and asked for their resignations.
Helen Thomas
34.
You're only as good as your last story.
Helen Thomas
35.
I think I'll work all my life. When you're having fun, why stop having fun?
Helen Thomas
36.
The United States has tried for years to live down President Franklin D. Roosevelt's order during World War II to move Japanese-Americans on the West Coast to inland detention camps on grounds that they might be disloyal.
Helen Thomas
37.
I was in Independence, Missouri when Johnson signed the Medicare bill, with Truman standing there. Truman had first proposed Medicare, but couldn't get it through.
Helen Thomas
38.
Get the hell out of Palestine.
Helen Thomas
39.
If we lose our title of "land of the free," what have we got?
Helen Thomas
40.
I think that presidents deserve to be questioned. Maybe irreverently, most of the time. Bring 'em down a size. You see a president, ask a question. You have one chance in the barrel. Don't blow it.
Helen Thomas
41.
Life is too short to drink the house wine.
Helen Thomas
42.
Maybe the Jefferson case will give members of Congress second thoughts the next time they get ready to legislate away the rights of ordinary Americans.
Helen Thomas
43.
I wrote that President Bush is passing on to President-elect Obama two wars and an economic debacle. I call it a depression. And he is arming Israel against the Palestinians in every way in Gaza.
Helen Thomas
44.
The day Dick Cheney is going to run for president, I'll kill myself. All we need is another liar... I think he'd like to run, but it would be a sad day for the country if he does.
Helen Thomas
45.
It's time for women to make their voices heard. Their silence on the subject of war and peace is deafening.
Helen Thomas
46.
Truman fired the popular Gen. Douglas MacArthur because he disobeyed orders in the Korean War. Johnson knew that he had reached the endgame in Vietnam when Gen. William Westmoreland, the top commander in Vietnam, requested 240,000 more troops in 1968 for the prolonged war that also could not be won.
Helen Thomas
47.
President Bush has asserted the right to wiretap and eavesdrop on any American without a warrant in the name of fighting terrorism. He has asserted presidential power beyond stated constitutional rights, and there is no Republican gutsy enough to call his hand.
Helen Thomas
48.
Anybody who runs for public office today has got to know his life or her life will be an open book. I've decided that if you want to run for public office you have to decide at the age of 5 and live accordingly.
Helen Thomas
49.
I have a background and an understanding of what's happened in the Middle East that a lot of people don't have, because there's been no interest.
Helen Thomas
50.
I think Obama is handling his image very well, but I think he lacks boldness.
Helen Thomas
