BOB WOODWARD

After Nixon resigned in 1974, he engaged in a very aggressive war with history, attempting to wipe out the Watergate stain and memory. Happily, history won, largely because of Nixon's tapes.

I have gone on the air and announced my telephone number at the Washington Post. I go into the night, talking to people, looking for things. The great dreaded thing every reporter lives with is what you don't know. The source you didn't go to. The phone call you didn't return.

There are people who take rumors and embellish them in a way that can be devastating. And this pollution has to be eradicated by people in our business as best we can.

When you see how the President makes political or policy decisions, you see who he is. The essence of the Presidency is decision-making.

The source known as Deep Throat provided a kind of road map through the scandal. His one consistent message was that the Watergate burglary was just the tip of the iceberg.

There's hostility to lying, and there should be.

The Washington Times wrote a story questioning the authenticity of some of the suggestions made about me in Silent Coup. But as a believer in the First Amendment, I believe they have more than a right to air their views.

The cloud of doubt that surrounds political figures tends to remain and never dissipate or be clarified.

Watergate provides a model case study of the interaction and powers of each of the branches of government. It also is a morality play with a sad and dramatic ending.

Nixon's grand mistake was his failure to understand that Americans are forgiving, and if he had admitted error early and apologized to the country, he would have escaped.

The central dilemma in journalism is that you don't know what you don't know.

I think journalism gets measured by the quality of information it presents, not the drama or the pyrotechnics associated with us.

The fact of the Watergate cover-up is not nearly as interesting as the step into making the cover-up. And when you understand the step, you understand that Richard Nixon lied. That he was a criminal.

Watergate is an immensely complicated scandal with a cast of characters as varied as a Tolstoy novel.

It was accountability that Nixon feared.

There is a garbage culture out there, where we pour garbage on people. Then the pollsters run around and take a poll and say, do you smell anything?

Certain political figures think when you call them and ask them for a comment; that you are somehow doing something that you shouldn't be doing.

Lawyers didn't seriously get involved in the Watergate stories until quite late, when we realized we were on to something.

Way before Watergate, senior administration officials hid behind anonymity.

I don't think voters give a hoot about the character of their political advisors, except to the extent that character reflects on the candidates.

I have found people don't want to be told. That they can figure it out.

I don't think there will ever be a permanent truce, but I believe the media needs to be more careful and be willing to count to 10 before rushing on the air or into print.

Many people have their reputations as reporters and analysts because they are on television, batting around conventional wisdom. A lot of these people have never reported a story.

When you hear in the tape recordings Nixon's own voice saying, We have to stonewall, We have to lie to the Grand Jury, We have to pay burglars a million dollars, it's all too clear the horror of what went on.

A reporter's ability to keep the bond of confidentiality often enables him to learn the hidden or secret aspects of government.