Washington was not just a city of marble buildings and smoke-filled rooms and power brokers, but also a town full of people who do care about each other, in good times and bad.

journalism was for me more than a business or a profession. It was a way of living, of experiencing the world even as I instantly distanced myself from it, in order to recreate what I'd witnessed for the public.

You`ve got David Petraeus who, yes, did, you know, something for which he pleaded guilty.

Senator [Bob] Corker has been, first of all, discreet and loyal. He has not signaled the internal mechanisms. He`s been pretty honestly saying, I wasn`t a real insider in the campaign.

When it came to political power, blacks need not apply. Add to this steaming stew the growing tensions over the Vietnam War and the movement for civil rights, and you had plenty of elements to fire the imagination of a novice journalist.

[Mitt] Romney looks the part and is well known around the world and has a lot of experience.

[On reporters trying to cajole a smile from her husband, Alan Greenspan:] For a Federal Reserve chairman, that was a smile.