359 Quotes by Bob Woodward

Finally, the president added, 'The American people are idealists, but they also want their leaders to be realistic...

Many foreign policy leaders had said that Trump gave Kim (Kim Jong Un, dictator of North Korea) too much by agreeing to meet without formal, written conditions. "So, have you given Kim too much power?" I asked. Kim had said he wouldn't shoot more ICBMs (Intercontinental ballistic missiles)."Because if he's defiant, if he shoots one of those ICBMs, what are you going to do sir?" "If he shoots, he shoots," Trump said.

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

...Obama said, 'I welcome debate among my team, but I won't tolerate division.

Obama had campaigned against Bush's ideas and approaches. But, Donilon, for one, thought that Obama had perhaps underestimated the extent to which he had inherited George W. Bush's presidency - the apparatus, personnel and mind-set of war making.

McChrystal had organized a jaw-dropping counterterrorism campaign inside Iraq, but the tactical successes did not translate into a strategic victory. This was why counterinsurgency - blanketing the population in safety and winning them over - was necessary.

One of Nixon's speechwriters "never deluded himself about Nixon's darker instincts, his paranoia, the capacity for hatred, the need for revenge, the will to crush anyone he perceived as an enemy.

With the release of the transcripts Nixon had allowed America into the ugliness of his mind - as of he wanted the world to participate in the despoliation of the myth of presidential behavior. The transcripts, Garment thought, were an invasion of the public's privacy, of its right not to know. That was the truly impeachable offense: letting everyone see.

It was nearly midnight when the conversation finally stopped on its own weight. The question was unresolved, at least in any explicit way.